


Moffat Tales

by jcporter1



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-13
Updated: 2014-01-29
Packaged: 2017-12-23 08:41:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 39,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/924236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jcporter1/pseuds/jcporter1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thinking ahead to season 3 and the obvious *shudders* wedding, caused me to imagine a Sherlock built to Moffat's  specification.  That would mean, No Gay Subtext.  No Gay Anything.  With John married off to Mary, who will "work with" Sherlock now?  The logical answer is the forensics specialist who has always been mad for him and willing to do anything he asks.  And she has better lab equipment than he does.  Don't worry.  Moffat's Sherlock is Asexual.  Married only to his work. You wont have to sit through any awkward Molly/Sherlock.</p><p>How would John handle being replaced?  What would that do to the dynamics of his marriage?  When the longed for miracle finally happens, and Sherlock comes back, why is it that John finds he isn't happy?  Instead of joy, there is only disappointment and niggling resentment as John watches Sherlock and Molly run the streets while he tends to his marriage and family.</p><p>I'm taking this bit by bit and letting it lead me where it will.  It is more an exercise than story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Moffat Tales Part 1  
I am Lazarus

 

John was just coming out of the lounge, after a break of two chocolate Digestibles and a hot cup of bracing, black tea when he got the word…  
Gunshot-  
Passed from nurse to nurse, to intern, down the corridor; John picked up the pace; a walk/jog, following his staff into the E.R. floor. His mind shifted into high gear. 9:35 on a Wednesday night was hardly the standard time for violence. A gunshot wound was even less likely. It was most likely a police shooting then, or gang related.  
He knew he was distracting himself. Gunshots always triggered echoes in his memory. Shots in battle, shots on a case, and always ending with a faint sympathetic pulse in his scarred shoulder. He rolled his shoulder subconsciously. Entering the controlled chaos of the ER floor, John noted the flurry of activity taking place behind the second curtained cubicle to the left. A red haired RN flung the corner of the curtain back as she hustled out.  
"Is that the gsw?" John asked.  
"Yes, I'm just getting larger dressing."  
"Bad?" He didn't wait for her to answer as he yanked the green curtain back, and swept his eyes across the patient for information.  
Female.  
Thirties.  
Pale. White-washed with shock.  
Conscious? Yes. Even speaking in soft breathy gasps to the civilian that stood over her. No lung damage then.  
Location of wound. John swept aside the civilian standing over the woman. He was pressing on a blood soaked handkerchief over a spot in her side.  
“Excuse me.” John spoke softly to the no doubt shocked loved one and peeled back the handkerchief. Oh, this could be tricky.  
“This was from a high powered rifle.” John spoke out loud, unaware.  
A hole big enough to plunge his thumb in pierced her midsection from front to back. It was off center, so no spinal damage. Below the ribs, probably missed the kidney, but very possible damage to intestines. Loss of blood had to be massive.  
"Call surgery, we need an exploratory. Where is the paramedic?” John shoved clean gauze into the wound to stop the weeping of blood. The red headed nurse rattled the curtain rings as she hurried back handing John a large sterile dressing.  
“Thanks, Janel.” He flashed her a tight smile.  
"There was no ambulance; she was brought in by her friend." This response came from the intern John mentally referred to as "Peach Fuzz" because his soft round face couldn't grow a proper whisker for love or money.  
"No ambulance? So we don't have any vitals."  
"Working on it Doctor Watson...BP 98 over 70. Pulse 89."  
"Blood type?" John pressed the dressing snug over the wound while the nurse tore strips of tape and stuck it down.  
"Now let's see the exit. Roll her on her side, gently. Is surgery on standby?"  
As a team, the nurses and intern shifted the woman on her side. John’s breath caught at the size of the exit wound. Like a flesh daisy the skin had blown apart in shreds. He had one just the same on his shoulder. At least a pint of dark blood pooled on the gurney.  
"We are going to need a transfusion. Do we know blood type!"  
"It’s AB positive, John,” a strained voice came from the patient. A nurse dashed off to retrieve a unit, while John stood flummoxed. That voice? He knew that voice. And she called him John?  
"Molly?"  
"Yes?" her voice was weak.  
"What happened to you?"  
From his right he saw movement. The civilian he had brushed aside stepped forward, just a dark shape in his peripheral vision. John felt the hair on his neck bristle even as a voice like wood smoke and whiskey spoke into his ear.  
"She got shot, John."  
John swiveled on his hips to see behind him.  
"Sherlock...?" he croaked. John’s torso leant back in shock and suddenly the floor was like ice. His feet shot out from under him and he sat hard on the floor. John looked up into familiar black curls and silver eyes. His ears filled with the hum of florescent lights and washing machines and TVs set to talk shows from two houses away. His mouth filled with hot, bitter saliva and he fought to swallow it down. Survival instincts drove him to try to stand. His shoes scrabbled on the hard surface but could get no purchase. Sherlock leaned close shouting "John", but he made no more sound than the cry of a distant sea gull. The lights faded and John collapsed back onto the floor.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thinking ahead to season 3 and the obvious *shudders* wedding, caused me to imagine a Sherlock built to Moffat's specification. That would mean, No Gay Subtext. No Gay Anything. With John married off to Mary, who will "work with" Sherlock now? The logical answer is the forensics specialist who has always been mad for him and willing to do anything he asks. And she has better lab equipment than he does. Don't worry. Moffat's Sherlock is Asexual. Married only to his work. You wont have to sit through any awkward Molly/Sherlock.
> 
> How would John handle being replaced? What would that do to the dynamics of his marriage? When the longed for miracle finally happens, and Sherlock comes back, why is it that John finds he isn't happy? Instead of joy, there is only disappointment and niggling resentment as John watches Sherlock and Molly run the streets while he tends to his marriage and family.
> 
> I'm taking this bit by bit and letting it lead me where it will. It is more an exercise than story.

John was falling. Arms pinwheeling. White lab coat flapping like wings. The sidewalk rushed up at him. Sherlock was already there, blanketed by his great coat, haloed in blood. Hugging the grey concrete. John would land beside him. There would be a crush and a bounce.

Soon.

Gasping, John's eyes flew open and he caught himself before he fell face first out of the hard backed aluminum chair the ward kept for family and friends of patients.  His head ached. Tears streaked his face.

"Bloody hell!" he cursed himself and scrubbed his eyes with the sleeve of his lab coat.  Looking about he recognized Room #2. The same one Molly had been in. The squeak of rubber soled shoes on linoleum presaged the sweeping back of the curtain.

"Oh good, you’re up. Can you see to this sick baby?"

Janel looked at him from under arched eyebrows, seeming to find it perfectly normal that an ER doctor from a war zone would pitch over on his head in the middle of an exam.

"Did you prop me up in this chair?" he asked.

"Well, they needed the gurney to transport the patient. And you were fine, you went down slow enough that you didn't bang your head too hard."

The patient!  Molly, with a hole big enough to shove a broom stick through. 

"How is she? Molly, Miss Hooper I mean."

"She was stable and still conscious when they wheeled her out.  You and I have seen much worse in the war, Doctor Watson."

"Yes." John recalled that Janel had been a nurse in a field hospital in Iraq.

"And it’s always a shock when the person lying on the table is someone you know."

"Yes. Quite. Umm,” John hesitated a second, “ did she go up alone. To surgery I mean?"

"Yes. You haven’t been out that long Doctor.  Ms. Hooper was the only gunshot so far."

"Oh.  Of course. Right.  I only meant ..."

The approach of a squalling baby interupted them.

"Yes.  Just in here.  Dr. Watson will have a look ."  Janel had turned to direct the mother and infant into the room.  The tone of the babies cry and the way the red faced child was banging its fist against its head was a dead giveaway to earache.  John actually smiled at such a simple ordinary case and looked up at Janel.

"Nurse, would you stop by the pharmacy. Pick up some erythromycin."

Janel  nodded. "Liquid?"

 

"Please. Thanks Janel. Now let's see what seems to be the problem here." John gratefully turned on his bed side charm and shined a scope into the baby's red ear.

 

Through the rest of his shift he found his eyes darting to the elevator doors. Then the doors to the stairwell. Then the hallway leading from the cafeteria. He convinced himself that the shock of finding an old friend pierced through by a sniper's bullet in his ER had caused some kind of flashback.  It was the strongest he had had in years, but not the first and likely enough not the last.  He would just have to be alert for them. It didn't do to swoon like a teenaged girl at a boy-band concert in front of his co-workers.

Near the end of his shift he stopped by the nurses’ station and found out which recovery room Molly had been assigned to, and then had a bouquet delivered from the gift shop.  Molly was not well known in the hospital, but the lab techs knew her and she was considered "one of our own" by the staff.

 

As soon as he made the rounds with the morning shift, John erased his name from the white board behind the nurses’ station and took the stairs up to the second floor and Molly's room.  He had convinced himself that the tall man in a black jacket was only a friend of Molly's or a good Samaritan who had saved her life, and had no doubt gone home hours ago to get some sleep. And yet, his heart was in the back of his mouth by the time he entered her room.

No one there.

‘And when I say no one...'. He teased himself, 'I mean Besides Molly, her surgeon, a nurse changing her IV bag and an orderly asking what she wants for breakfast.'

It was actually rather packed and John hung back until the nurse and orderly left. Molly spotted him.

"John!” She said with a pleased smile.  Always a sweet girl, John thought.  Her surgeon, a balding man who John met from time to time at staff meetings, turned with a curious expression to look at John.

 

"Dr. Watson! What brings you here?"

"Oh. I just wanted to check up on Molly. She is an old friend of mine."

"I believe I have heard that. Well, you will be happy to know that the bullet only knicked one bit of bowel. It’s been stitched and cleaned, and a drain set in place. We want her to stay with us for a couple of days to make sure no infection takes hold, but she should be back home Friday night, or certainly Saturday morning."

"Well that is good news.” John's eyes swept the room, searching for used coffee cups or a scarf, a long black coat? Nothing. The disappointment rounded his shoulders.

"Of course, we have to interview with the police," the surgeon continued bruskly "but I wonder if you wouldn't mind sticking around and taking care of that for me.  You rather owe her, what with that prat fall you pulled in the ER."

John pulled a face.

"News travels fast." he tried to shrug it off.

"Bart’s is like a small town. Full of gossips." The surgeon patted his shoulder and left the room.

 

John turned at last to Molly and took her hand in his. A gentle person like Molly should never feel the insult of hot lead ripping through her flesh. Her hand was warm, her pulse sleepy with morphine. Her eyes were brimming with tears. Whether from the pain or the relief he couldn't tell.

 

"Molly," John started to speak but Molly began to sob.

"John. I'm so sorry."

John was stunned. It had to be the morphine talking.

"Sorry? Oh, Molly, no. You don't have anything to apologize for.  I'm just so glad you're going to recover. But you have to tell me what happened."

"She was saving my life.” That voice again.  Behind him.

"Sherlock?" John stood perfectly still.

Sherlock walked past him with two cups of takeout coffee from the cafe down the block.  John swallowed. Wise.  All the Bart's staff went there, foregoing the weak tepid coffee from the cafeteria. Sherlock gave one to Molly and the other to John.

"Still drink it black?" Sherlock asked.

"What ..." John's jaw dropped. The cup slipped through his fingers.

Hot coffee soaked the legs of his trousers. Sherlock looked with concern at John.

"I am terribly sorry John. I did not intend to reveal myself this way."

Try as he might, John could not stop the room from spinning. He reached out and grabbed a lapel on Sherlock's rough coat- the same one from his dream? – he  hung on tight to steady himself, and that one tiny bit of contact broke the spell.

"Reveal yourself?" John was washed over with such relief. It had been a bad dream. Just a long, long nightmare. Seemingly endless, yes, and devastating, true.  Purgatory, certainly, but not real.  

But this. This was real.

Like a sleepwalker, John shuffled forward and wrapped Sherlock in his arms.

Later, John would blush to recall the sounds he made. He felt 20 years old again. No, 18. Younger. 12. And Sherlock was as thin as a waif under his dad's big coat. John wanted to wrestle Sherlock to the ground, shove him, tackle him, until they were both flushed and breathless and covered in bruises. He was desperate to feel every part of his Sherlock with every part of himself.  He needed resistance and the reassurance of limbs.  But instead John just clung to him, shoving his face inside Sherlock’s coat, mashing his ear to Sherlock's chest to hear the thump of his heart, letting Sherlock’s shirt absorb the hot tears that sprang to his eyes.

 John remembers with something like shame, like getting caught stealing, that he kissed Sherlock, and for a second Sherlock kissed him back. And then he broke away.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How would John handle being replaced? What would that do to the dynamics of his marriage? When the longed for miracle finally happens, and Sherlock comes back, why is it that John finds he isn't happy? Instead of joy, there is only disappointment and niggling resentment as John watches Sherlock and Molly run the streets while he tends to his marriage and family.
> 
> I'm taking this bit by bit and letting it lead me where it will. It is more an exercise than story.

  John's arms dropped to his side as Sherlock turned and leaned over Molly.   Feeling bereft and confused, John could only stand stiffly and chastise himself for a sentimental fool as the back of his neck burned with embarrassment.

                "What did the doctor say?" Sherlock asked Molly, his eyes  dark with concern.

                Molly smiled and patted his hand. "I'm alright Sherlock. Ask John, he was here. The surgeon told him." The coffee cup Sherlock had handed to Molly was beginning to slip in her relaxing grip.  John recognized the onset of a nice, healing morphine nap. He reached past Sherlock and plucked the cup from her hand and set it on the bedside table.

                "Get some rest, Molly.” John spoke softly.  “ I will check on you in a few hours.”   Molly nodded as her eyes closed.

                Sherlock turned and frowned.

                "Are you her doctor?"

                "Not specifically."

                "The surgeon is?" Sherlock bent over and kissed Molly on the forehead before straightening up.

                John's face screwed up at the unexpected display of affection. Sherlock turned and his mouth lifted at the corner.

                "You have questions?"

                John drew  his palm down over his eyes and nose, pausing over his mouth. He shook his head. "Only a million of them."

                "Okay. Let's let Hooper get some rest.  I don't have much time. Where can I smoke?"

                John gaped like a fish, not knowing which phrase to respond to. Finally he shrugged, "The roof is where most people go."

                Sherlock smiled lopsidedly. "Oh. I believe I know the way."

                John wasn't laughing. He felt bruised from head to toe and he didn't know what to do with the warring emotions ripping his insides apart. He decided that he wouldn't let Sherlock think less of him.  Already he regretted the kittenish mewl he had let out when he hugged him, so he squared his shoulders and smiled back

                "Lead on then."

                Two flights later John remembered that the police would be showing up to interview  Molly. He checked his phone for the time. Nearly seven o’ clock. They wouldn't come by until 9 at the earliest.

                "The police won't be coming here. They already know what happened."

                John paused on the steps. Back ten minutes and Sherlock was already reading his mind.

                "Oh, that's good. Wish I did."

                "What? Know what happened to Molly?  She took a bullet meant for me." They continued walking.

                "How did that happen?"

                "Seb Moran got the drop on me. I didn't know.  Hooper shouted to warn me.  He turned and shot her instead."

                John paused on the stairs again. Sherlock kept walking.

                "Come on John, I'm gasping.”  John hurried to catch up.

                "Sherlock. I don't know who that is, ‘Seb’ whatever… and why was Molly with you when you were ambushed?"

                Daylight filled the stairwell as Sherlock shoved open the door to the roof.

                "I wonder if there is any trace left?" he mused, pulling a package of French cigarettes from his coat pocket.

                "Of Moriarty? No. They resurfaced the roof last year."

                "Pity. I could have stood over it and shook my fist." John could tell from the light tone that Sherlock was smiling. If Moriarty was still sentient in some other plane, looking at this scene, he would no doubt be enjoying this.  Mission accomplished.  Sherlock was back, he won the game, but John felt like HE had lost.  He followed Sherlock to the edge of the roof, and they both looked over the ledge. John was trembling, but he shoved his hands in his pockets and tried his best to look stoic.

                "There were six men with a fireman's net that day.  Simplicity itself.”   He took another drag, deep, and held it for a second, before letting the smoke drift lazily out of his mouth.   John envied the numbing jolt of smoke filling Sherlock’s lungs and wished for once that he smoked too.

                 "It was never meant for you to see.  It was for Moran's benefit.  Even after Moriarty killed himself, Moran needed to see me jump or he would have killed you, it was as simple as that. There were buses blocking the sidewalk.  The last ten feet were obscured, even from Moran's point of view from the roof of that department store." Sherlock pointed across the street with his cigarette, then took a last puff, ground it out on the ledge and turned his back to the street, focusing at last completely on John.

                “You should have stayed home that day.  You would have missed the theatrics."

                "I never asked you to save me, Sherlock." John's voice was flat.

                "No. But you would have done exactly the same for me.” Sherlock tipped his head to the side with a rueful smile.   “And if not for me, then for Mrs. Hudson. "

                John blinked. "Mrs. Hudson too."

                "And Greg. But I’m not sure I would have jumped for Lestrade." his lip twitched at the joke.  John rolled his head on his neck and tried to mimic Sherlock's dispassion.

                "So then what?  Three years you wander around?  Doing what?  And why was Molly shot?"

                "I had to bring him down." he saw the confusion on John's face.  "Not Moriarty.  He died on the roof, but his lieutenant, Moran.  When Moriarty died, he left a vacuum.  Moran stepped in.  He isn't a criminal genius like Moriarty, but he didn't have to be.  The system was in place, and Moran had been Moriarty's right hand for so long, it came easy to him."

                "It took you three years to catch one guy?" John heard the bitterness in his own voice, he hastened to smooth it over.  "If you had told me, I could have helped. We could have caught him in weeks."

                "Hmmm..." Sherlock pursed his lips.  "Couldn't be done that way. Moran is not a showman like his boss.  He hid; went deep underground, Portugal if you can believe it.  He just dashed back here when he had to enforce a business deal.  He already knew which of his people he could trust.  The rest he fired." Sherlock smiled at John.  "Do you remember the sudden spate of bodies turning up in the Thames? That was Moran's big "layoff."

                John lent forward, hands on his knees. "So why keep me in the dark? "

                "I had to take him down all at once.  If I wanted to clear my name, if I wanted to insure that Moran's lieutenant didn't simply step forward and come after me, and by ME of course I mean you, I had to take every precaution.  If you weren't gutted by my sudden death and confession, then Moran would know.  And then he would just repeat the past.”  Without thinking, Sherlock’s hand came to rest on the back of John’s neck, giving it a slight sympathetic squeeze. 

                “It worked so well, you see.  I didn't jump because Moriarty was going to kill me, but because he was going to kill you.  If Moran had even the tiniest hint that I was still alive, he would just have strapped semtex to you again, and I would have been right back here on the roof of Barts being given the same choice- my life for my friend.  You see that, right?  Moran had you watched.  If I had called, he would have known, he had your phone tapped.   If I had sent an email to your blog, he would have been informed.  No.  Really.   Your follower IbelieveinSH69 was one of Moran's people.  He monitored your internet activity.  He could turn on your web cam.  If you weren't exhibiting the signs of a despondent man who had just lost his best friend even while you were inside the privacy of your own four walls, Moran would know it."

                Sherlock stopped then, letting it all sink in. John squatted down, bouncing on the balls of his feet and exhaling and inhaling forcefully.  Sherlock squatted next to him and bent down to see his face.

                "Are you okay?" his silver eyes flicked back and forth searching John's face for clues.  He shifted his hand from John’s neck to his shoulder.  "You're perfectly safe now.  I assure you.  We timed it perfectly.  We lured Moran to Baker Street and while he was looking through his scope at me, his entire organization was collapsing like a house of cards.  It was brilliant." Sherlock smiled at John.

                "I'm not...I wasn't...not afraid.  I just..." John took a deep breath. "Give me one of your cigs." he reached into Sherlock's coat pocket and retrieved the pack.  Surprised Sherlock moved his arm out of the way.

                "But John, smoking?  When did you start?"

                “The moment my best friend came back from the dead.”  John shook out a cigarette.  "Got a match?"

                He cupped the end of his cigarette to block the wind. Sherlock flicked his lighter and held it until the cherry glowed.  John inhaled deep.  It was ghastly and he could taste all the separate carcinogens, but it paralyzed his shuddering breaths.  He coughed.

                "So get to the part where Molly got shot?"

                Sherlock actually blushed.

                "That!  Even after three years of careful planning, Moran still had a surprise for me.   I moved back into Baker Street two days ago.  Made a point of going in and out three times so whoever was monitoring the cctv feed would be sure and notice."

                John took one more drag and surrendered the cigarette back to Sherlock who took it with a smile.

                 "You remember the explosion, across the street?  They finished the remodel, but it was still vacant.  I was one hundred percent certain that Moran would use that apartment as his snipers nest.  It has a spectacularly clear shot at my sitting room.  Hooper visited a wig shop..."

                "Molly?" John queried.

                "Yes."  Sherlock waited to see if there would be further interruptions.  "You did ask how she was shot."

                "Yes. Go...finish."  John could scarcely follow the narrative.  Molly?  Molly knew.  Is that why she apologized?  'I'm so sorry John' -  sorry for what?  For hiding the truth?  Or sorry for taking his place at Sherlock’s side?  Sherlock cleared his throat and hurried to finish.

                "Molly had procured a wig that looks like my hair and an inflatable doll - of all things. With a lot of glue and makeup, she produced something that looked like the back of my head. We sat it in the settee and positioned the chair so it looked as if I was having a lie about on the couch with a book. By closing the curtains half way, it made a passable facsimile of myself.  I went on the roof across the street and waited for Moran to show.  We imagined it would likely be dark before he made his move.  Molly stayed in the flat to turn on lights and make the doll shift position from time to time. Lestrade had loaned me a couple of officers..."

                "Lestrade!" John wailed.  This time Sherlock didn't stop.

                "AND...I had them watching the back door in case Moran slipped through the alley. I was on the roof, watching with binoculars as Molly was turning on the telly. She was careful not to be seen, but then suddenly she is standing in the window pointing at me and shouting "Moran!"  I turn and the crafty bastard is on the roof 50 feet away with his rifle pointed at me.  But he was surprised by Molly's shout and turns, I imagine he thought she was armed and aiming at him, cause he shot from the hip at the window. It was lucky he didn't have time to aim. By the time he turned back my way I was on him. I had my pistol and shot him in the leg before bashing him across the head. The officers came and cuffed him for me and I took their car to get Hooper here as soon as I could. There.  Now you're caught up."

                John's phone went off in his pocket. He shoved his hand in and silenced it.

Sherlock arched an eyebrow at the ignored call.

                "So Lestrade knew?  About you?"

                "Oh. I see." He smiled, understanding the course of John's questions finally.  "Only this last two weeks. I needed his help orchestrating all the arrests at the same time.  We needed Interpol and the Yard and police departments all through Europe to move at the same time.  It would have been impossible for a disgraced consulting detective to arrange it.  You know as much as anyone the reach that organization had, even into jury pools and prisons and police stations.  The beast had to be killed all at once."

                "So when you say 'We' you mean you and Lestrade?"

                "And Molly!  Don't forget her.  I would still be out there..."  he swept his arm against the sky, "if not for Hooper's help.  She was invaluable."

                "She was with you?  All the time?"

                "When she could get away from work, yes.  She is the one who arranged for the firemen to catch me.”  Sherlock warmed to the subject, rubbing his hands together.  “Quite a remarkable person, Molly.   She has the invaluable skill of being invisible, John.  She could go anywhere and no one gave her a second glance.  Moriarty didn't see her.  Moran didn't see her.  Hundreds of the most dangerous criminals on the continent didn't see her.  Once we were in a restaurant in Prague, monitoring an international tete a tete between three mob bosses, and we couldn't get close enough to hear.  I strapped an apron around her waist and handed her a basket of bread with a wireless mic in it and she walked up to the table filled with the most notorious gangsters and their bodyguards and sat the basket down right under their noses. Their eyes LITERALLY washed over her without seeing her.”

                Sherlock shook his head, remembering the night.  “To be a plain woman is the ultimate disguise, John.  You yourself had her lying flat on her back right in front of you and you didn't SEE her.  She was invaluable to me.  And she is a forensics expert John, with access to better labs than me.  I can't believe I didn't think of it before."  Sherlock stood up.

                "Come on. I have to meet Lestrade  at the Yard. We have weeks of interrogations ahead of us. The courts are going to be packed for months."

                John stood.

                "Right!  Let me just grab my coat.  I won't be a moment."  John stepped out smartly.

                Sherlock stopped. "Umm, John, I didn't mean you had to come.  I meant Greg and I."

                "Oh!" John felt the roof drop away below his feet.  He froze.  Of course.

                "Besides, don't you need to be getting home?  That must have been Mary calling.  Oh!  My manners!  Congratulations are in order, I believe."  Sherlock extended an open hand for a shake.

                John's mouth fell open.  It was Sherlock's voice but Mycroft's phrasing.  It sounded false and loathsome to John's ears.  John ignored the outstretched hand.  Sherlock dropped his hand, puzzled.

                "Oh.  I heard of course.  Hooper told me.  She said it was beautiful.  Dove and pearl and silver colours.  A splash of violet with out of season irises.  Very tasteful.  Her brother was your best man. Good choice that.  The Moffats are such an influential family it pays to keep the siblings happy."

                John gaped.  "YOU don't care about weddings!  Sherlock!"  For reasons he could not explain to himself John was livid.

                "Well, not as a rule, but yours of course, I care about that.  Why wouldn't I.  You are my one friend John."

                "Except for Molly apparently.  She seems to be your new bestie!"

                Sherlock actually took the time to coolly consider the validity of this statement before nodding.

                "I suppose she is a friend.  I guess I thought of her as a colleague."  He turned to continue walking.

                "Sherlock!" John was shouting, glued to the spot.

                "What is it, John?" He turned with a flair of his coat and John's heart leapt in his chest like a fish.

                "What about me?  Us?"  He was horrified to find his eyes brimming with tears and he held perfectly still so they wouldn't spill.

                "Us?  John.  Think about what you're saying.  You are a married man.  Married to the daughter of one of the most successful developers in the UK.  John Watson and Mary Moffat of # 1 Moffat Place, Apartment 20 of Moffat Tower.  You awaken to a panoramic view of the Thames and South London every morning.  You work as an ER doctor, true,  but the word is out that a directorship is in your future."

                Sherlock's words came as blows.  It was as if John had forgotten all of this in the last 10 hours and had been prepared to move straight back to Baker Street.  Sherlock's words defined him, pushed him away, and sentenced him.  His phone buzzed again. He ignored it, but Sherlock's eyebrow arched and his mouth twisted sardonically, almost aggressively.

                "You John Watson are a husband and father, you have no time to play at detective with me."

                "Father?"

                It was Sherlock's turn to be surprised.

                "She hasn't told you yet?  Right!  You've been on night shift this week.  She probably means to tell you in some special way, once you are back on days.  Maybe a romantic dinner?"

                The roof was spinning like a top.  John recalled that they were celebrating her birthday on Saturday at her favorite restaurant.   She had been refusing wine lately.  John felt sick.

                "How?  How could you know..."

                "Hooper.  She is always gossiping with the lab techs.  Damn.  Molly did tell me to shut up about it!  I am sorry John.  Tactless of me."

                His phone buzzed again, John  pulled it out of his shirt pocket and answered.

                "Hello?  Hi, Mary."

                Sherlock gave John a twisted smile and a nod and walked away.  John felt himself crumble.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thinking ahead to season 3 and the obvious *shudders* wedding, caused me to imagine a Sherlock built to Moffat's specification. That would mean, No Gay Subtext. No Gay Anything. With John married off to Mary, who will "work with" Sherlock now? The logical answer is the forensics specialist who has always been mad for him and willing to do anything he asks. And she has better lab equipment than he does. Don't worry. Moffat's Sherlock is Asexual. Married only to his work. You wont have to sit through any awkward Molly/Sherlock.
> 
> How would John handle being replaced? What would that do to the dynamics of his marriage? When the longed for miracle finally happens, and Sherlock comes back, why is it that John finds he isn't happy? Instead of joy, there is only disappointment and niggling resentment as John watches Sherlock and Molly run the streets while he tends to his marriage and family.
> 
> I'm taking this bit by bit and letting it lead me where it will. It is more an exercise than story.

John felt the irresistible pull of Sherlock as he swept away, but Mary's voice, smart and sharp, pricked his ears.

"John?"

"Yes?" The door closed and he was alone and smelled of cigarette smoke. Reality was slucing around him, Sherlock's and Mary's reality. For a staggering moment John felt that there was no reality for him.

"I was wondering why you weren't home yet."

Her concern seemed plausible, his shift ended at six, but John often stayed late to check on patients and Mary knew this. It wasn't even eight. Ordinarily he would still be on the tube.

"Is something wrong?" his voice was flat, calm, but suspicion crawled up the back of his neck.

"Nothing, Love. Just missing you. Are you still at work? Should I come pick you up, we could stop at that cafe you like for breakfast."

She knew. Somehow she knew. Was she waiting for him to say something.

He was having a baby.

"Sherlock is not dead."

"Really?"

"You knew."

"The admitting nurse told me."

John didn't want to think about why his wife was on the Admitting Nurses phone tree for gossip. No doubt it would lead back to Moffat and his ideas about what was best for John. He swallowed.

"Come pick me up."

"Right. Be there in half an hour."

"Thanks, love."

After a check on a still sleeping Molly Hooper, John bummed a cigarette off an orderly and managed three drags before the smoke made him dizzy. But in spite of the nausea, he felt better, stronger. He popped a stick of gum and blamed the smell of smoke on Sherlock when Mary pulled up to the curb.

"I thought he did "patches."

"Apparently you can't be an international man of action without smoking." He grinned at Mary.

"Will you be working together?"

John looked out the passenger window at the high end shops and luxury town houses that were more and more his life these days.

"Doesn't seem so." He kept his voice matter-of-fact. Mary was easier to fool than Sherlock, he wasn't sure if that endeared her to him more or less.

John insisted on brunch at a posh hotel, something he could do now that was once so far out of his reach that he couldn't even dream about it. Back when he was just an Army doctor. Back when he lived with Sherlock Holmes. He worked through steak and eggs and two Bloody Marys while Mary picked at a fruit bowl. John nearly lectured her on getting enough protein for the baby, then remembered he wasn't to know yet. He realized it had been ten minutes since he said a word.

'Rude!' He chided himself.

"So Molly came into the ER last night." John bit into an orange slice, and waved at the waiter for coffee.

"Molly?" His wife asked puzzled.

"Molly Hooper. The girl who works in the morgue. She'd been shot."

"Oh, her. The one who gave Sherlock body parts. She was shot? How did that happen? Angry family member wondering where their mother's fingers were?"

John's brow furrowed at Mary's attempt at snide humour.

"She was working a case with Sherlock. Cheers." this last he said to the waiter for filling his cup.

"But you said Sherlock wasn't working any cases."

John cleared his throat pointedly. "Not with me, anyway. It seems he doesn't need MY help anymore."

Mary pushed aside the coffee and asked for herbal tea. When was she going to tell him?

"Well, Love, really you have outgrown that sort of thing, haven't you. You're not that lost little boy anymore." She rested a hand on his leg, just above his knee, trying to make him feel better by engaging his cock's interest. Which, John thought with a mental sigh, was working.

"Mary, since we're at a hotel anyway, how about we take advantage of the situation?"

Three hours later, John was dozing contentedly. Mary's short blonde hair tickled his cheek. His fingers traced the tiny bump on her tummy.

"I'm pregnant." she whispered.

He smiled, legitimately happy.

"I know," he murmered. "Bloody Sherlock told me."

Mary raised up on her elbow.

"How the hell does Sherlock Holmes know I'm pregnant? We've never even met!"

John took a deep breath.

"Molly told him. The lab techs all talk to each other, and they told Molly and she told Sherlock and he congratulated me on being a father." he stroked his wife's cheek. "Nothing nefarious, just poor timing."

"Why didn't you say that you knew?"

John laughed. "Because I wanted to hear it from you, not Sherlock." He rolled her over and kissed her.

"I suppose he told you when it's due and the sex and colour of its eyes." she pouted.

"No. Only which uni it would end up at. The rest he wanted to surprise us with."

"Its due near dad's birthday, so you can imagine how thrilled he is about that."

"Your dad knows?"

"Now, don't sulk, I was waiting for a special time to tell you. I wanted it to be nice."

John smiled and traced his finger over her top lip.

"This was nice. Good choice."

"Are you okay?"

"Better than okay. You've made me the happiest man alive."

"I can tell." She grinned at him and lifted her hips up against his slowly swelling cock.

"Want to go again?" He spread her legs with his knees.

"Might as well, the damage is already done." she smiled wickedly.

His cock was hard, sweat pooling in the small of his back and his wife was arching her back and moaning with abandon when he heard his cellphone buzz.

He ignored it.

The text alert went off.

He ignored that, instead he dug his toes into the mattress and poured himself into his effort. Mary's eyes opened with curiosity and he thrust into her roughly to get her focus back on him, shoving his forearm under the small of her back to lift her up and shoving his knees up under himself to jackhammer into her. Mary's moans gave way to cries. She called his name as her head drove back into the pillow, arching her neck.

John suspected who the message was from. It was like he was here, spying on them, waiting for the worst possible second to interrupt. John was angry. He grew rock hard and as Mary came, he took the opportunity to take her hips in both hands and drive in hard, slapping his balls against her and listening with satisfaction as she stuttered his name.

John was slick with sweat, but the shade of Sherlock standing behind him, judging -no worse- deducing him drove him on. Mary was grunting, crying, arching again, legs wrapping around his ass.

"God..John...godgodgodgod...Oh God!."

He let her slide off him this time, but still had to take himself in hand and pull and push punishingly hard to finally achieve release. He came hard. His back straight, eyes closed, mouth open wide. He cried out; a shout only, no name.

He looked down at a very debauched Mary and smiled, trying to ignore her slightly puzzled expression. He bent down and kissed her.

"I should shower, I smell like my gym bag."

"What got into you?" Mary asked as he walked away.

"I'm a dad!" he said with a grin. "That changes a man."

As the water heated up in the shower, Mary walked in, holding his cellphone. "Sherlock left you a message. He wants to know how Molly is."

John pulled a face. "Shit I forgot to call."

John plucked the phone from her hands.

Mary resisted, hanging on to the phone for a second. John cocked his head.

"Is He going to be an issue for us?" She released the phone.

John bristled at the tone of her voice, but he hid it under a snort.

"Not bloody likely. He told me in no uncertain terms that I was a married man with a child. That makes me just like everyone else...dull."

"You're not dull to me John Watson!" She kissed him and draped her arms around his neck.

"Aww, you just want me for my superior genetics" he ground against her.

It was too soon for her to be showing, but he could tell she had added 5 pounds to her midriff. He imagined a curly haired little girl tucked in there, far too close to his cock. Instinctively he took a half step back.

"You've found me out." She broke away and dashed into the shower before him.

"Hey!" He laughed.

His phone went off. He didn't recognize the number, so it must be Sherlock. He was going to be a father. That wasn't dull. He set the phone down on the sink and pushed into the shower after Mary.  
_____________

Three hours later Mary dropped John back off at Barts. One more shift and then a weekend off. As he approached the entry, he felt himself moving with a heaviness.

Rather like he'd strapped on a bit of muscle, or like his balls had grown. Was this what being a dad did to a bloke?

He noticed the nurses at the station gave him a slightly longer once over as he stopped to sign in. He felt a smile twist his lips.

"Ladies."

"Evening Doctor."

Amazing, he'd heard about the Dad attraction but had never experienced it first hand. How could they tell he was officially a breeder. A rooster among hens. He could probably get with any of these women, if he wanted to.

But of course he wouldn't.

He felt his presence rather as a breeze, before he heard him. Like a southern gale, blown up from places Mediterranean. John literally shivered, but hid it by turning to face him.

Sherlock gave him the briefest of looks as he passed him, headed for the stairs.

"I see you've had a productive day." And that was it. He floated up to the first landing then disappeared at the first turn in the stairs. On his way to check on Molly. John wanted to follow, but the day shift doctor was in a hurry to do rounds and get home to her family.

\-----------

At dinner break John went up to check on Molly.

He stopped by the gift shop to grab a crossword book and pencil on his way up to the second floor. The worst thing about hospitals was the boredom, and he imagined Molly must be getting stir crazy by now.

As he approached her room, he saw a tall shadow cross the open door, and heard a rumbling baritone.

John paused, stood like a pillar, closed his eyes and let the sound surround him like warmth from a hearth.

So many nights he dreamt of that sound. So many heartbreaking moments of lurching awake with Sherlock's voice calling his name. Audio hallucinations. Not

uncommon. Many people woke to hear their parent calling their name to get up for school. For a long time John awoke to voices crying "Medic! Medic!". Over time that changed to Sherlock's voice- stern, insistent- "Get up John!"

And John always shot up, expecting Sherlock to be standing in his doorway, collar up, gleam in his eye, impatient to get on the scene of a new crime before the trail grew cold.

"Are you alright, Dr. Watson?"

John opened his eyes. Molly's surgeon stood before him.

John felt his cheeks burn.

"Yes. Yes. Just trying to remember something."

"Something I could help you with?"

John shook his head. "Oh no. I doubt it, unless you can tell me my wife's ring size. I was going to buy her one, as a celebration. We're expecting, you know."

"Oh! That's wonderful!" that seemed to clear up all of John's sins in one go. "Well, congratulations. Are you checking on Ms. Hooper? She is doing better than we hoped."

"Brilliant. Good. Well," John smiled, "I'm off."

"Your old friend is in there, the one who jumped off the roof..."

"Right, Ta." John turned to go.

"Not at all like you portrayed him, you know, he's really rather clever and reserved."

John hurried away without comment. He only had five minutes before he had to get back down stairs.

As he entered Molly's room Sherlock barked a laugh and Molly groaned.

"Please don't make me laugh, it hurts, she clutched her hands over her bandaged wound and giggled and groaned.

John felt as if he were interrupting. "I just met your doctor in the hall and he said you were well enough to go dancing. Seems its true." He walked past Sherlock to give Molly a hug. He felt his old friend's eyes study him and knew without looking that the left side of Sherlock's top lip was doing a very subtle Elvis sneer. The one that meant he was trying very hard to Not be emotionally invested in the current deduction. The last time John had seen it was in Kitty's apartment when they came face to face with Richard Brook the "actor".

"Thank you for coming John, I'm sorry for the shock we gave you."

John straightened up and glanced over at Sherlock, just in time to see the sneer twist into a sardonic grin.

"Sherlock was just doing the best imitation of one of Moran's men."

"He has always been a great actor. How are you Sherlock?" He forego the hug and extended his hand. Looking amused, Sherlock gave his hand a brief squeeze.

"Not as well as you John. Same clothes as last night? I suspect Mary told you about the baby then."

John grinned. "Yes she did. And she says if you know the colour of the baby's eyes to keep that to yourself."

"Well, that's not even difficult, I know your genetics, and her family is always in the paper, its really just a simple ratio problem."

"Well, please, keep your math to yourself professor. We want a surprise."

"Of course you do. So few surprises left, I don't blame you for wanting to ration them."

"Sherlock..." Molly's voice was pleasant but insistent. Sherlock broke away from his study of John.

"Not good?" he asked.

She gave her head the smallest shake. Sherlock inhaled and straightened up, fixing that flat smile on his face that he saved for witnesses and victims families. "You have my word, I won't spoil any of your surprises."

John's smile froze on his face. Molly had taken his place not just as colleague, but also as life coach and etiquette teacher. John was no longer "only Friend" or even second friend; he was now "Other". He could hear a slamming door as he was locked out for good.

John turned back to Molly, "Oh, this is for you. In case you get bored." he handed her the brown bag with the puzzle book.

"Thank you John. Very nice of you. It will be a nice break from going over transcripts." She waved her hand at a file box on the visitors chair.

John cleared his throat, as always when he was about to give an order or make a statement. They both looked at him, Molly with curiosity and Sherlock with boredom. "Right. Well, I'm due at work. Try and get some rest Molly." John looked at Sherlock's mouth, honestly afraid to read what was in his eyes. No matter that John was a

respected physician, a husband and father to be, if he saw disdain in Sherlock's eyes, it would rock his confidence for the whole next year.

"Sherlock." John managed to get the word out.

"John" John watched his mouth twist to the left, which meant Sherlock was amused. John turned on his heal and nearly ran over Lestrade as he came through the open door.

"Greg!" John was stunned.

"John. Nice to see you. Congratulations on the wedding mate." he smiled at John and then looked over his head at Sherlock. "Moran's Number 2 wants to make a deal and spill his guts. Will you come?"

Sherlock was already buttoning his coat. "Of course he is. With the ship sinking they will all be ratting each other out. " He patted Molly's arm. "I will see you in the

morning Molly. Call if you find anything useful."

Both men swept out of the room before him. John huffed. He turned and smiled tightly at Molly.

"Right, I will check in on you at my break. Don't work too hard."

"Yes, Dr. Watson." She smiled as she reached for the top file on the stack.

John turned and hurried for the stairs, already two minutes late from his break.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thinking ahead to season 3 and the obvious *shudders* wedding, caused me to imagine a Sherlock built to Moffat's specification. That would mean, No Gay Subtext. No Gay Anything. With John married off to Mary, who will "work with" Sherlock now? The logical answer is the forensics specialist who has always been mad for him and willing to do anything he asks. And she has better lab equipment than he does. Don't worry. Moffat's Sherlock is Asexual. Married only to his work. You wont have to sit through any awkward Molly/Sherlock.
> 
> How would John handle being replaced? What would that do to the dynamics of his marriage? When the longed for miracle finally happens, and Sherlock comes back, why is it that John finds he isn't happy? Instead of joy, there is only disappointment and niggling resentment as John watches Sherlock and Molly run the streets while he tends to his marriage and family.
> 
> I'm taking this bit by bit and letting it lead me where it will. It is more an exercise than story.

John dropped in on Molly at his last break.  She was fast asleep with transcripts from an interrogation lying on her chest.  

John picked up the file and noticed a name devoid of vowels on the tab.  Must be Eastern European.  He shut off her light and went back to work, not noticing the still form asleep in a chair in the corner.

Saturday morning, at the end of his shift, John joined Molly in her room for her last hospital breakfast before she was released.  Sherlock had obviously been and gone. The file box was missing and Molly was enjoying a hot cup of tea from the corner shop again.

There seemed to be a void in the room.  Things unspoken.  Molly finally spoke into it, attempting to say in a short time all the things she had been denied for the past three years.

"If I could have, John, I would have told you he was alive the very first day.  But he insisted I would be killing both of you and maybe Mrs. Hudson."

John grimaced.  "Yeah. He told me the same.  I guess we'll never know for sure if he was right."

Molly struggled to sit up straighter.  "No John.  No.  He was right.  The more I helped him, the more I could see.  They were everywhere, and they never stopped looking at you."

John scoffed.  "Maybe at first, but I moved out.  I moved on."

"They followed you. To your new flat...and then they watched you on dates.  Followed you and Mary around.  It never stopped."

"Come on now Molly, Three years? After a year they must have been convinced that Sherlock was really dead."

"Most of them were, but Moran said Moriarty had underestimated Sherlock and he wasn't going to do the same.  He kept two guys on you always. "

"Well, Sherlock could have let me know..."

"No. He couldn't." Molly pounded her fist onto the bed clothes.  " Every time that Sherlock had to disturb Moran's plans, say, stop a murder of some minister's family, no matter how stealthily Sherlock hid his part in it, Moran would go on high alert.  There would be more people watching you, and his brother, and Baker Street."

"Sherlock told you all of this, right?  You had to take his word for it."

"No, I heard it with my own ears." 

"Your own...wait, wait. Did Sherlock have you infiltrate Moran's crew?"  

"I just went out with one of them a few times. He worked here, as an orderly, to spy on you."

"Here? And let me guess, Sherlock asked you to flirt?" John was aghast at the risk Sherlock had exposed Molly too, she was a shy helpless woman.  At least he had combat training.

Molly almost laughed.  "I can barely talk to people I know.   All Sherlock did was ask me to time my lunch with his and be at the cafeteria at the same time.  He..."

"He?"

"Vince, he was the one who started talking, not me.  He said he had a friend who had cut himself badly but was afraid of hospitals. He wondered if I would come by and stitch him up. After work. So I went home with him on the tube and patched up his friend.  It was a nasty business.  He had a weeping stab wound.  It took nearly two weeks for him to recover."

"So dangerous, Molly." John shook his head.  Molly smirked, just a bit,

"Well, you would know, wouldn't you? You ran across roof tops! I never had the nerve for that."

John grinned, then laughed. "True." He sat on the side of the bed. "So what happened with Vince?"

Molly shrugged. "Not much. He called me sometimes when one of his friends needed a bone set, or a bullet dug out, then he would take me out for fish and chips and hold my hand."

"Vince told you things, did he?"

"No, he would never dare.  But he talked to his friends about you.  He called you John Ruddy.  Sherlock said it was code."

"That's because Sherlock knows nothing about sports. John Ruddy is actually a goalie for Norwich."

"Yes. But see they kept saying 'John Ruddy is worth a fortune, now he's married to that rich bi... woman.'" Molly cut her eyes away.   "Vince had a plan to make the family pay."

"What are you saying?"  John twisted a handful of bed sheet in his hand.

"That Vince and his friend were going to kidnap you.  Sorry.  They were going to hold you ransom.  Make the Moffat's pay."

"They said this? In front of you?"  

"No. I would be in the other room stitching up some friend with a hospital phobia and my cellphone would be in my jacket pocket hanging by the front door."

"With an open line to Sherlock..." John mused, admitting the cleverness of the operation to himself.

"Exactly." Molly tried to bend over and pick up the travel bag on the floor by her bed.  John hurried to retrieve it for her first. 

"Why didn't they do it?  Go through with it?"  John realized that Molly was trying to change.  He jumped up and pulled the privacy curtain as she pulled out a blouse and lacy bra.

"Sherlock made sure Moran found out." John could here the familiar snap of elastic as she hooked her bra and adjusted the straps.  "Vince turned up in the Thames after that, handcuffed to his friend." Molly paused. "He came through my morgue strangely enough. I have to admit, that was uncomfortable.  I know he was a murderer and all, but he was sweet to me. "  There was the whisper of fabric as she put on her blouse.  

"Why did Sherlock stop it." John thought aloud.  "A kidnapping would have proven for once and for all that he was dead.  Just as long as he didn't rush in and save me."

"Because," Sherlock made a melodramatic entrance, pushing a wheelchair through the door, "Moran would have killed you. A ransom demand for Dr. John Watson, friend of the infamous Sherlock Holmes, it would have had the press crawling all over looking for connections between your kidnapping and the double suicide on Bart's roof.  Moran could not allow it."

John's face felt warm. "All of this could have been avoided if you had only told me you were alive.  Instead you risked Molly's life and mine, and your own. If you had only trusted me..."

Sherlock stooped to lock the wheels. When he straightened there was a look like thunder in his face.  John didn't blanch.  He stood up and balled his fists, grinding his molars together.

"Go on then genius. Tell me how I'm such a total git that I couldn't be trusted to know you were alive and not blab it to everyone.  Go on.  Let's hear it. Tell me how much I owe you for playing guardian angel."

"John..." Molly spoke softly, opening the curtain.  John ignored her.  Sherlock narrowed his eyes.

"Oh, I see.  You think you're the injured party, right?"

"Yes.  Yes I do.  Three years I've been walking around with a bullseye on my back.   That is definitely something I should have known.  I could have made preperations, been...I don't know, 'checking my six' for suspicious gunmen."

"And that would have immediatly drawn Moran's attention to you.  What do you think he would have done if he thought you knew something?  Stop and ask you politely for my whereabouts?  No, he would tie you down and start carving you up until you told him."

"I...I wouldn't..."  John felt the blood drain from his face.

"No. Probably not, and he wouldn't kill you either, because then there would be no reason for me to show myself.  No he would send out the word that it was decision time again and I would be right back up on Bart's rooftop.  Only This Time, I wouldn't have been able to guarantee that Moran didn't kill you too.  He didn't play the same game as Moriarty."

"The Game!  Again! Sherlock! Always the bloody game!"

"Uhm, guys..." Molly tried to placate.

"It wasn't My game, John!  You act as if it was something I planned!"  Sherlock rose straighter still.

John stepped forward, his forefinger poking into Sherlock's chest.  "You Did Plan!  You had a fire brigade waiting to catch you!  You Planned Everything!  And you could have told me at any point during that day!  You let me go see Mrs. Hudson at the hospital.  What the Fuck was that?  'Alone Keeps Me Safe'!  What a great load of bollocks!"

Sherlock leaned into John's finger.  His hands turned palms up for one last try at suplication.  "I planned an escape route. That was all John. We were on a rooftop. I thought I might have to jump to keep from getting shot.  Or take Moriarty over with me. For the rest of it, yes, 'Alone does keep me safe'.  And yes I knew the call about Mrs. Hudson was to lure you away, but I didn't want a repeat of the swimming pool. Can't you see that?"

"Well, now, that's explained..." Molly swung her legs over the side of the bed.  But the two men saw nothing but a swirling past and shifting truth.  John was gasping as if running for his life, Sherlock had turned to marble.

"You could have trusted me Sherlock." John's voice rasped.  "For god's sake, I killed a man for you."

"Yes, and I killed a man for you." Sherlock turned his head to see John out of his dominant eye. "Myself."

John slumped. His arms fell to his sides, his shoulders rounded.  He couldn't look into Sherlock's face.  Sherlock waited for a full ten seconds, motionless, holding his breath, then he moved to help Molly into the wheelchair.  Once seated, Sherlock unlocked the wheels.  As he began to roll Molly out, John stopped him with a hand on his forearm.

"Sherlock,"

John beseeched, his face turned up and tears tracked down his ruddy cheeks.  Sherlock's face turned masklike. He had never been faced with so much turbulence.  John's emotions were bleeding out of him and soaking into Sherlock's sleeve.

"If you had told me...you should have told me...I would have waited."  John hated the rising whine of his own voice.

"Waited for what?"

"For us.  I would have waited for us."  John's face burned.  

Sherlock's eyes turned to flint and his mouth curled into a delicate sneer. "But. Your. Not. Gay. John."

Sherlock's velvet voice purring his name made John catch his breath.  He let his hand slip off Sherlock's forearm and Sherlock wheeled Molly out the door.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thinking ahead to season 3 and the obvious *shudders* wedding, caused me to imagine a Sherlock built to Moffat's specification. That would mean, No Gay Subtext. No Gay Anything. With John married off to Mary, who will "work with" Sherlock now? The logical answer is the forensics specialist who has always been mad for him and willing to do anything he asks. And she has better lab equipment than he does. Don't worry. Moffat's Sherlock is Asexual. Married only to his work. You wont have to sit through any awkward Molly/Sherlock.
> 
> How would John handle being replaced? What would that do to the dynamics of his marriage? When the longed for miracle finally happens, and Sherlock comes back, why is it that John finds he isn't happy? Instead of joy, there is only disappointment and niggling resentment as John watches Sherlock and Molly run the streets while he tends to his marriage and family.
> 
> I'm taking this bit by bit and letting it lead me where it will. It is more an exercise than story.

Molly moved into Baker Street. It just made sense. She needed supervised care, and Sherlock needed help going over the transcripts. He gave her his bed, since stairs were difficult, and he bunked in John's old room. Which is to say, his clothes stayed in John's old room and he slept on the couch.

When Sherlock had first gone to Molly for help, he considered her a last resort, but she had a scientist's efficiency and clear logic. After the Fall, he needed her to arrange for travel, to locate shelter, and sometimes for an extra set of eyes. Every time she performed well, and she was so delighted to help him that he began to think of her as his first resort.

Unlike John, who often nattered at him and questioned his decisions, Molly had a pleasant tongue-tied hero worship that gave him space to think. The only times she had baulked at any of his plans had been for very good reasons - either he had overlooked something, or a critical piece of information was missing from his risk assessment - reasons that had saved his life on two occasions. Sherlock found himself placing greater and greater value on her opinions.

He brought her to Baker Street to heal. Between Mrs. Hudson and himself she would have constant care. But to be honest, he had brought her here for more selfish reasons.

When he had first set out to bring down Moran, he had been fully engaged and motivated. The threat to his friend had triggered a strange new feeling of desire to protect. As he ranged over the Continent, he never felt isolated, because in a small, warm, sweet part of his mind, John was home safe and sound in their flat. Sherlock always pictured him drinking tea, and waiting patiently for Sherlock to walk through the door.

This kept him warm and focused on even the coldest nights and longest stake outs. Molly filled him in on little things; John was dating. Good. That was good. John could use the company while he waited for Sherlock's inevitable return. Then Molly told him, timidly, over a cup of tea in Bucharest, that there was an engagement.

Sherlock had doubled his efforts. Slept less, ate almost never, and came to rely even more heavily on Molly's help. Sherlock was certain if he could just wrap up Moran and his crew before the wedding...

But...

Dove. Grey. Pearl. Purple Irises.

Sherlock couldn't pick up a newspaper for a week. Honestly, you would have thought they were royalty. Mary Moffat, daughter of the multi- billionaire developer, and Dr. John H. Watson, the poor one-time friend of master criminal Sherlock Holmes; fooled like "the rest of us" by the dashing brilliance of a psychopath. A second chance for a kind man. Kind, sympathetic, Dr. Watson.

Sherlock oscillated between keening grief and grinding rage. He was barely human for the next six months. One day, trailing a drug mule across Berlin, he was so distracted by a wave of simmering anger that he stepped in front of a speeding bus. A small hand grasped him by the collar and tugged him back on the side walk. The bus blasted it's horn as it hurtled past. He turned, surprised.

Molly.

How long had she been there? His mind scrolled back over preceding days. Three weeks. By his side for three weeks and he couldn't remember speaking to her once.

"Yet here you are." he said to her, his voice rumbling up from his solar plexus.

"What?" She looked up puzzled.

"Nothing. He's getting away. I know a short cut through that alley." And off they went at a run.

The loss of the warm, sweet part of his mind still triggered feelings of betrayal but Molly gave him something new. A true colleague. A partner. There were no feelings (from Sherlock anyway) of warmth or desire, but there was the excitement of having a fellow hound on the hunt. And more. Molly in her obvious crush on the detective, provided him with a small portrait of himself. He began to feel empathy for once, with a fellow human being. And sympathy that he could not fix things for her. He could not return her love. But he could be kind. And, if he could not share his heart, he could share his passion. The work.

There was always the work.

And now, he needed another heartbeat in his old flat, or he would not have been able to stand the silence. He might have been forced to go so far as to lodge with Mycroft. Sherlock would have stopped a bullet for Molly without hesitation, but it was a happy circumstance that she had ended up at Baker Street.

Sherlock carried two mugs of hot tea into his (Molly's) bedroom. She was sitting up against the headboard, her laptop open on her knees, ear buds in. taking notes as she listened to the recordings of Moran's men in Lestrade's interrogation room .

"Tea?" Sherlock came in and sat it on the bedside table.

"You're going to spoil me," she smiled delightedly.

Sherlock sat carefully on the side of the bed.

"Look what do you think of this?" Molly replayed a section of the tape, removing the head phones plug so Sherlock could hear.

"We was to always drop the pay envelope at the florist." the voice on the tape was frightened but belligerent. The man was scrambling to find a way to reduce his sentence.

"Florist." Sherlock repeated.

"There was a florist drop also used in Brussels, wasn't there." She sipped her tea as she searched a spreadsheet she had made to keep track of "breadcrumb trails".

"There, yes, the sex trade smugglers used a florist drop."

Sherlock leapt to his feet to pace. Any major player that escaped at this stage could be problematic. If he had missed something....

"Flowers come from where?"

"Well, for John's wedding, the Netherlands."

Sherlock's stomach fell. Had he revealed his hand too soon?

"Molly. Find any reference for florists and forward them to me. I'm going to speak to my brother. Don't let anyone in the flat. Don't answer the phone." He reached in his bedside table and pulled out his 9mm pistol, flicked the safety off and handed it to her. "Shoot Anyone who comes in."

Mind thrumming, Sherlock thundered out of the flat.

He changed course half way to Mycroft's. It was an indicator of how exasperated he was with himself. He should have stayed dead a little longer, maybe forever. Now his fears all rose up like monsters from the sidewalk before him. Was he in cross hairs as he hailed a cab? Was there a discussion taking place in a back room somewhere with principals he didn't know discussing who to take from him this time. John again? From the back of the cab he texted John, only to be reminded that he no longer had John's cell phone number.

He flung money at the cabbie as he disembarked at NSY.

He burst into Lestrade's office just as Greg was shutting off his computer for the night.

"I thought you were done for the day, what's up?"

Sherlock struggled to compose himself.

"That Keiler, the East End kid who worked for Moran, is he still talking?"

"Funny you should mention that, his lawyer showed up today, and suddenly the kid has amnesia."

Sherlock's mouth twisted. "Damn."

"It must be spreading, cause they all have it. As of three o' clock this afternoon they've all gone mute."

"Right. Right." Sherlock circled Greg's desk once, his eye's dancing left and right.

"Is there something I should know?" Greg asked suspiciously.

Sherlock smiled a tight smile, "No. No. All our arrests are air tight. Look at the time, I have to go home and feed Molly." He hurried out, sprinting for the elevator, then taking the stairs when the elevator took too long to arrive. Back on the street he called Mycroft.

Mycroft was dressing for dinner with a minor government official from Pakistan to discuss the movements of several radical imams when his phone beeped. He saw his brother's name and chose to let it go to voice mail. His phone beeped again. Sherlock. At the third call he answered.

"Yes, what is it, Sherlock?"

"You have that locked box I gave you. I requested you put it some place safe, I need it now." there was an awkward pause and then "Please, Mycroft. It is important. Not to put too fine a point on it, but lives do hang in the balance."

Mycroft's mouth twitched with the smallest of smiles.

"When do they not, little brother. Meet me at my office in 15 minutes." He disconnected and hurried out the door.

Twenty minutes later Sherlock was outside of Mycroft's office in a cab; waiting. He was just speed dialing his brother when the door to the office opened and Mycroft's receptionist hustled out to the curb with a small fire proof documents safe. He handed it through the cab window and wordlessly turned to dash back inside. The phone in Sherlock's hand spoke.

"Have you received it?"

"Yes, thank you."

"I take it no one is to know?"

"That would be best, Thanks brother mine."

"Glad to help."

He disconnected. He just needed to pick up something at the flat... Oh, and feed Molly.

The deli down stairs had soup in "to-go" containers. Sherlock bought four, and bisquits, cookies, two six packs of juice, and made arrangements for two hot meals to be sent to Mrs. Hudson for the next two nights. She could bring them up to Molly, she had a key. And if he was longer than three days, well, nothing would stay the same.

He carried the soups up and shouted for Molly not to shoot.

"Sherlock?"

He poked his head in. She was where he left her, tea cold in its cup. She had been engrossed in work.

"I have soup, Chicken Noodle or split pea?"

"I have five more references to florists. The same company."

Sherlock was by her side in two strides. He looked over her lap top at the notes she had scribbled. Names in French and Polish.

"Its a flower wholesaler. The shops are all independently owned, supposedly. But they all use the same wholesaler. This company, HaarlemFlora.. Its in Holland. There was nothing happening in Holland, was there?"

"Nothing at all. It must be a coincidence. Did you say split pea?"

"Yes, that's fine." She turned a curious look on him. He was holding back. She shrugged. "is there toast?"

"There is biscuits."

"Okay. If I find anything else, I will just text you?"

"Sure." It was Sherlock's turn to.shrug. He picked up her cold cup of tea. There was a hammering on the door. Sherlock and Molly looked at each other. He took back the pistol and jogged to the entrance way.

"Open up! John Watson! I know you're in there!" It was a woman's voice. Sherlock slid the pistol into the back of his belt.

"Who is it?" he asked in a velvet conciliatory voice.

"You open this door, Sherlock Holmes, I know he's in there."

"Who are you?" Sherlock purred through the gap in the door frame.

"Sherlock?" Mrs. Hudson's voice carried up the stairs. "What's going on? Oh. Hello dear, I'm the landlady, can I help you?"

Curiosity piqued, Sherlock cracked the door open to see a posh lady with short blonde hair looking down the stairs at Mrs. Hudson.

"Mary Moffat?" Sherlock asked.

She spun around. She was wearing red, which suited her hair and her current temperament. A finely cut suit, wool blend over a starched white shirt with high collar.

"Moffat is my maiden name, Sherlock, which you know perfectly well." She looked over his shoulder, craning her neck. "Where is my husband?"

Sherlock stepped aside to let her in.

"John is missing?" His voice turned to ice.

"Don't be precious. Where is he hiding. I expected this, you know, the minute you turned up not dead, I knew you would stir up his past, and he'd only just gotten over it. John!" She shouted, charging into Sherlock's bedroom to find Molly staring owl-like at her.

"He's not here Mary." Molly said gently, as though mollifying a mentally unstable patient.

Mary's brows knitted together. "Then where is he?"

Sherlock stood in the bedroom doorway, his hands clasped together behind his back. He was fighting down his own emotions of dismay.

"How long has he been gone? Molly and I saw him this morning at the hospital."

"He never came home. He didn't call. He's not answering his phone..." Whistfully Mary looked up the stairs to John's old room. "I'm just going..." She trotted up the steps in her very impractical high heels, but returned in a few seconds. "Not up there either." She bit her bottom lip and her eyes turned pleadingly to Sherlock.

Right. He straightened his jacket, yanking on the bottom flare.

"I have some ideas, places he may have gone. If he is having flashbacks, there are some places he tends to go. Let me scout about for him. Would you stay with Molly? I was just making her dinner. Soup in a take out box in the refrigerator. Split pea, was it Molly?" As he spoke, Sherlock casually walked into his closet and extracted a leather jacket and slipped his arms into it. It changed his look from consulting detective to businessman trying to look tough. He plucked his curls forward over his eyes, changing his demeaner from sexless and cold to one of a cavalier character "looking for fun". He looked at Mary.

"Will you?" He repeated.

She was suffering from a variety of emotions, not insignificantly one of which was sudden sexual interest in the disconcerting change of Sherlock from nemesis to attractive stranger. Combined with worry and anger her befuddlement was complete.

"Yes. Of course. Just find him. I should call the police."

"Mmmm, they won't move on a missing person until tomorrow. But I will let Greg know, Lestrade," he corrected for Mary's benefit. "He is a detective, and can send out enquiries.

Snapping his collar up around his ears, Sherlock gave a tight smile,. "Right. I'm off. Text me if you hear anything."

He hurried out of the front door before Mary could follow, so no one would see the peculiar case he plucked from the kitchen table. On the street he caught a cab to the train station.

The trip to Harwich was fast enough. He arrived by 8:30. Three years of subterranean life had been a masters course in thinking ahead. Harwich had become something of a jumping off place to him, a quick ferry to the continent was always at hand. Ships were seldom as closely watched as airports. Sherlock had two bolt holes established under flag stones in two separate museums. Museums being immune to the upgrades of modern buildings.

With half an hour until the next ferry he hurried to the waterfront.

The Redoubt, a circular bastion built to stand against a possible attack from Napoleon, was closed, but easy enough to get into. Alarms were installed to keep the buildings secure from vandals, but what he needed was on the grounds. A flagstone path lead to a secluded bench that faced the sea. A six by eight inch flagstone was loose enough to be pried up with a pocket knife. Situated under the iron bench as it was, no foot would ever trod on it, so it would never be singled out for repair. It took a mere thirty seconds to retrieve the thin wallet with two hundred pounds and a fake passport.

"Philip Gregson" Sherlock said aloud, to familiarise himself with the name.

In five minutes Sherlock was well on his way to the landing. He caught the 9 o'clock ferry to Hook, staying out on the weather decks, he avoided crowds and conversation. His BlackBerry was search engine enough to obtain the address of HaarlemFlora and the name and address of the companies CEO.

Three years, more than that if you included Moriarty, was long enough, more than adequate, to teach him what he needed to do. When you were fighting snakes, you had to anticipate and catch the head. Was John held somewhere, tortured, dead? He had to catch this cobra quick, squeeze him, get the information. Chop off his head.  
His interrogation skills had improved in the last three years. The threat he had made to Moriarty, on the roof of Barts, had been a threat of intent. But he had long since honed those skills with hands-on practice. He was so far from the side of the Angels now, they wouldn't recognize him.

He checked his phone for incoming texts, but was now out of reach of service. Not until Hook came into view would he be in reach. He found a bench and leaned back against the bulkhead, watching the wake of the ship battle the swell of the North Sea. He waited. Time had taught him to compartmentalize. He had no information, no clay. He had a cool breeze teasing his curls. He had a target on the horizon.

Sherlock bent over and opened the curious little grey document safe. He pulled out a small square wrapped in cloth and shoved it in his coat pocket. With a casual glance around for CCTV cameras, he flung the empty container into the maw of the ocean.

He pulled his pack of cigarettes from his coat, his fingers brushing the brick of symtex in his pocket. As he lit his cigarette he wondered if Mycroft had ever guessed at the contents of the safe he was sitting on. The thought made him smile.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thinking ahead to season 3 and the obvious *shudders* wedding, caused me to imagine a Sherlock built to Moffat's specification. That would mean, No Gay Subtext. No Gay Anything. With John married off to Mary, who will "work with" Sherlock now? The logical answer is the forensics specialist who has always been mad for him and willing to do anything he asks. And she has better lab equipment than he does. Don't worry. Moffat's Sherlock is Asexual. Married only to his work. You wont have to sit through any awkward Molly/Sherlock.
> 
> How would John handle being replaced? What would that do to the dynamics of his marriage? When the longed for miracle finally happens, and Sherlock comes back, why is it that John finds he isn't happy? Instead of joy, there is only disappointment and niggling resentment as John watches Sherlock and Molly run the streets while he tends to his marriage and family.
> 
> I'm taking this bit by bit and letting it lead me where it will. It is more an exercise than story.

John woke up face first on cold flagstone.  Grateful.   Honestly.  Could anything feel better on his bloated,  battered, burning head than the constant eight degrees of good old cold English stone. He rolled his head gently to cool off his temple. His mouth tasted of fireplace ash and horseradish.

A pungent smell assaulted his nostrils. He cracked open his eyes to see a congealed puddle of vomit inches from his face. The sight and smell combined and his stomach flipped and he started retching before he even made it to his hands and knees.

"Oh god almighty! Guard! Guard! Get this sod out of here!"  A man’s voice shouted from behind  John.

 "Sorry!" he gasped between contractions. "Sorry, mate."  John felt guilty about coating the floor with the contents of his stomach.

"Here, wipe it up!" A roll of paper napkins landed on the floor next to him.  John turned his head enough to see a uniformed policeman standing on the other side of a door made of steel bar.  Jesus.  Where was he?  It actually hurt to think, so instead he found another cool patch of stone floor and stretched back out.  Later.

Later would be soon enough. He was snoring enthusiastically in 15 seconds.

 

As the ferry pulled into sight of Hook, Sherlock’s phone began to chirp and vibrate as it caught up with all the texts and emails that had been blocked by the crossing's dead zone. He gave them a perfunctory glance.

John was still missing, no ransom call.

Mary wanted to know what Lestrade had said, and where exactly Sherlock was searching for "her husband".

Sherlock deleted both texts.

Hook was modern and clean and full of pleasant if sleepy Dutch. One of which, a young woman named Dore, took pity on the stranded Philip Gregson whose wife had neglected to turn up at the ferry to collect him.

Sherlock gave her his most genuine smile and warmest thanks for the lift to Hague.  His time away had taught him that even undercover, one could take a moment and appreciate the kindness of strangers, even if they thought they were being kind to someone else, and even if that kindness involved some rather direct flirting from the freckled Dore, and a generous offer of oral sex.

For a full half minute Sherlock considered that his alias as a thirty five year old university professor who immigrated to Holland for a teaching position and had been married long enough for his wife to forget him at the ferry was just the kind of person who would accept such an offer from an outgoing twenty five year old woman, and would therefore solidify his story should police later turn up asking about a suspicious consulting detective.

Then he remembered that as a thirty five year old married college professor, he would be expected to return the favor, and he was pretty sure his cover story would be blown by his utter lack of any data or skill in that endeavor. So he responded with a counter offer for quick shag in the warmth of a petrol station's restroom.

This offer was agreed to enthusiastically, and as luck would have it, the young woman supplied her own condoms.

Getting off with a woman was always difficult for Sherlock, but he accessed the one memory he kept in his mental hard drive for such situations:

One Sunday morning John had gone in to shower off the pub smells from his late Saturday night.  The bathroom door had not quite latched so that Sherlock, as he passed by on the way to his room, heard the unmistakable sound of a fist slamming down a fleshy, soap-slicked shaft to the roots; slapping rhythmically into a tight swollen scrotum, and the sound of a tone, blond army doctor on the verge of release, his gasping, oh…oh… oh...as his head tipped back in the steam of shower water ; his form blurred by the frosted glass of the shower door. Unable to move, Sherlock had watched, listened, memorized and burned into his inner world the moment.  Perfect.

"Oh god...god...yes....Oh Phillip!"

Sherlock opened his eyes. They were standing, Dore was leaning back into a graffiti covered wall, one leg wrapped around his thighs, her eyes were shut, mouth slack, head tipped back, shuddering with orgasm. The sight caused him to soften and he slid out, trying his best to look as satisfied as she did. He leaned forward and kissed her, as his hands quickly tucked everything back into his trousers.

If Dore found anything amiss, she didn't let on. A knock at the door hurried them along and they were back in Dore's car and speeding down the highway in a minute. Strangely, the sex made her less chatty than before, and Sherlock was tremendously relieved when she dropped him off at the first taxi stand they found in Hague.  Sherlock wondered, as he watched her tail lights speed away, if the wanting was always better than the getting.  Maybe he was lucky John was straight.

Sherlock would forever have the wanting, and never the disappointment of the having.   Molly suffered the same for him.  He should tell her how lucky they both were.  Once he rescued John and put an end to this new threat, he would do just that.

Sherlock got out his phone and called the home phone of the flower king pin. He checked his watch as it rang, nearly 2 am. Not likely anyone would answer…

"Hallo?" A woman's voice. Possibly Mrs. Kaar.  Sherlock responded with a note of desperation.

"Hallo. William?" Sherlock did not try to disguise his rough Dutch.  He was a desperate Englishman.

"Nee, hij is niet hier." 

"Not there? Oh no! I need to see him...erm.. Ik heb zijn geld.  Money!  I have it.  Uhm... A groot deel van het geld."

 "Hij is bij zijn club."  The woman’s voice was nervous.

"Club?  Where is...waar is club?"

"Nee! Ik kan niet zeggen. Morgen bellen."  She hung up.

"Ah! Blast!" he hit redial and a teenaged girl picked up, speaking in classroom English.

"Hello. Dad is not here, you call him tomorrow."

"Tomorrow ! Too late.  He wants his money tonight or I am in trouble!  Do you understand?  I owe your father a lot of money, he wants it by tonight or else!  Where is the club? Please? He gets so angry, your father.  I am afraid of what he will do."

There was mumbling on the other end and the mom took the phone back.

"Nee! Morgen bellen!  She was nearly shouting now.

"Wait! Wait! Hij zal mijn kenderen vermoo... Kill .. Kill them, My kinder... Kids. You know how he is! Please. Where is the club?"

The daughter came back on the line.  "Here is my father's phone number. You call him. He will tell you where is club."

She rattled off a number once and then hung up.

"Fuck!"   
Not a word Sherlock used often.  He thought about giving the number to Mycroft, but didn't want anything to lead back to him.  He had to be spotless. Damn it. With time he knew Lestrade could get him a location with just a cell phone number, again, time he didn't have. He needed to be back in London by the morning.

He waited a minute, then dialed William Kaar's home phone again. The daughter picked up.

"Not Good Sherlock! Find another way!"

It was John's voice, strident, reverberating through his head. "Don't make an innocent girl live with the death of her own father on her head."

Sherlock forcefully shoved John back in the flat inside his head and shut the door.  There was no other way.

"Please! It’s me!  He says I'm too late!" Sherlock burst into blubbery tears.  "He will kill my children!  If I could just hand him this money.  It is two million euros, he would forgive me, I am sure. Don't you think?" He sobbed again.  "Your father is a good man, right? He would let my babies live?"

"Okay. Yes. Black Bear. Don't tell him I said. "  She hung up.

Wiping tears from his eyes, Sherlock googled The Black Bear as he flagged down a passing cab. From somewhere in the back of his mind he heard a muffled shouting as John tried to scold him through the door.  Later John.  Later.

 

 

 

John woke a second time.

He was able to focus now, and the room no longer tilted like the deck of a ship, but a claxon was going off in his head.  John sat up slowly and leaned against a metal bench attached to the wall.  He wasn't alone. Three other men were in the room with him, two much younger than John, looking a lot like he did when he was shipping off to war. The other fellow was in advanced middle age, grizzled and grey.  John hoped he looked better than that at the moment though he couldn't say for sure, the way he felt.  He desperately wished for two things, one- a toothbrush, and the other- some idea of what the hell happened to him.

He struggled to piece together any parts of the last twenty four hours.  His mind was a jumble of images.

"Anyone know where we are?" His voice sounded like a bleat of a sheep. He cleared his throat. "Are we in London?"

"It lives! What do you know!" The old grey man laughed and displayed a horror of tooth decay. "We were taking bets on if they would have to drag you out by your feet."

"They might yet, that's a nasty bump on his head." One of the young men spoke, John had to close one eye as he swung his head to look at the boy.  His friend joined in.

"Yeah.  Could be he's dying of swelling of the brain as we speak."

John ran a hand over his head, carefully and located a bump the size of a golf ball rising up through the hair on the top of his head.

"Nah, I've seen plenty of blokes get rolled.  If he was going to die, he would have gone into spasms already." Grey man again.

"Could you just tell me where we are? Last I remember is getting on a train."

"Where in Sandhurst." The two young lads spoke together. They must be soldiers. This was where John had gone for Officer training, and the Military was the largest employer in this part of England.

"Sandhurst Jail?" John asked.

"Drunk tank" said Grey man.

"Oh." John waited as this new information seeped into his swimming head, to see if this would help. He left the hospital, caught the train. Why? Why not the tube?  Why Sandhurst?  It was home to some vibrant emotional memories.  He had been young, strong and bright. Like all young Englishmen since Elisabeth I, off to conquer for Queen and Country.  Like these two lads.  Nervous of course, but certain he would do well.  Sure he would return a hero;  covered in glory.  

"Why are you boys here?" John frowned.

"My mate Frank had his birthday, 21. Tried to drink a shot for every year. Turns out Frank is a bit "punchy" when he's drunk."

"Tequila! That stuff should come with a warning."  The larger lad, obviously Frank, said with a shake of his head.

"Yeah, he tried to take on the whole bar, and they called the cops and here we are. But it’s alright, the army sends a van around every morning to pick up their own. We'll be out by first thing."

"And I'm here for the hot cot if you will. Bit cold out tonight. The local constabulary let me come on in when I want. I never make a mess of the place. Like SOME people." Grey man nudged the roll of paper napkins over to John with the toe of his split boots. "You ought to wipe that up mate, it aint right we got to put up with it."

John groaned inwardly, but he had to admit the enormous puddle of stinking booze and left over dinner was making life harder for all of them.

With concentration he managed to mop up most of it and flush the mess down the toilet without adding to the problem.

"I will be back on the streets after breakfast, but I'm not sure about you mate. You will have to change your tune, or you may end up down the road in the asylum." grey man spoke cheerfully.

John licked his lips and asked carefully. "What do you mean?"

"Well, obviously you got stinking drunk, and some cunt rapped you on the head and took all your money. Happens all the time. You can't wander around stewed anymore, there is punks will rob you."

“How do you know I was robbed?" John asked.

 As greyman spoke, images began to sort themselves into a time line. A bouncer showing him the door, saying 'you need to go sleep it off mate'.  Walking down a cold dark street, wheeling side to side. Was there a car? Headlights, swerving around him, he staggering out of it's way, too late, lost his balance and ... Nothing.

"I might not have been bashed on the head," John spoke carefully, "I might have bashed my head on the curb."

"Ay. That's more likely. I never seen a man as drunk as you last night. You were delusional, mate.  "I'm Dr. Watson. Call Sherlock Holmes! "

The two army lads giggled at the mimicry. Encouraged Grey man went on. "Call Sherlock Holmes! Its life or death! I'm Dr. John Hamish Watson! I live at 221 B Baker Street!"

Now all three were having a good laugh.  John sighed. Sherlock. As far as most people knew, Sherlock was dead. John reached for his wallet, which was of course gone.  Without I.D. he would have sounded like a looney.  Jesus, Barts had two or three "Sherlock Holmes" come into the ER each month;  patients who were off their  meds or over dosed on something. 

John laughed softly with them. "Really? Must have been the blow to the head, I'm better now. I wonder if I can make a call. My wife must be worried sick."

Sherlock. Saturday, yesterday, morning, Sherlock dismissed him. "You are not gay." and walked away. Like he never needed to see John again. For fucks sake! Why save my life if you care so little about me.  The Game of course, always win the game, and John was just a piece on the board.

If he had anything left in his stomach he would have heaved it out.

Now John was safe, he was dull. Sherlock had no need of him. He had moved on.  While John was grieving, Sherlock had been moving on.  Picking up Molly as a new assistant, he had picked up the scent and gone back on the hunt. John Watson? Who? Sorry, don't recall him. I am the famous Sherlock Holmes. Indestructible. Impervious. In need of no one.

John had taken the train back to the last place he felt whole and strong and manly, Sandhurst, and then he had proceeded to drink Sherlock out of his head.

But it hadn't worked.

Oh god Mary must be furious. And worried. He had to call.

Shit. Mr. Moffat. When the press got wind of this, Mary's dad would blow his top. His son in law drunk as fuck and running around talking about Sherlock... Jesus! He had to get out of here without letting anyone know who he was.

 

 

Sherlock had the taxi driver let him out a mile away from the Black Bear.   As he covered the next ten blocks, he took the time to set the detonator in the small block of symtex.  Sherlock didn't want to die, but if things didn't work out, he could always take them out with him.

The club was a pub attached to a small hotel. After hours, as it was now, it was taken over by the less respectable members of the community.  There were a dozen cars parked in the icy parking lot, undoubtedly some belonged to guests, but half of the cars had tinted glass, and the settled look of reinforced doors weighing down the shocks. For a second Sherlock considered deducing which belonged to William Kaar and taping the symtex to the gas tank. But he needed to be sure he took the right one out, and he needed to know if John was still alive.

 

Sherlock walked boldly through the door. A coat check girl immediately tried to stop him.

"Het spijt me meneer, we zijn gesloten."  She moved in front of him and waved her hands in a shooing gesture.  Sherlock looked at her coolly and began to shuck his big over coat.

"I'm here for Mr. Kaar," he didn't attempt Dutch, but spoke in his old haughty tone, the one he used when he once thought he was invincible.  "He is expecting me." he dropped his coat in her arms and smiled over her head at the man himself holding court in a booth facing the door.  The woman spluttered in Dutch. A blond man with a jaw like an oil drum stepped forward to block his way. Sherlock nodded at Kaar, who was now looking over with curiosity at the commotion at the door. Kaar nodded at the security guard.

Stepping forward, nearly chest to chest, Blond man stretched Sherlock's arms to the side, and grunted at him to stay. He then patted Sherlock around his middle, down both legs, back up with a bold swipe at his cock, almost a slap, and then up his torso under his arms. The guard froze when he felt the square of symtex in Sherlock's inside coat pocket. He stepped back smoothly whipping his pistol out and aiming at the bridge of Sherlock’s nose.

Sherlock looked panicked, then clucked. "Wait. Wait!" he lifted his left arm straight up and with exaggerated slowness opened his coat with his right hand, showing no gun or holster. Then he slid two fingers into his inside pocket and pulled out his hardpack of cigarettes. Sherlock smiled nervously and tried to make a joke.

"Smoke?" he offered the pack to the guard.

Kaar, watching across the room, laughed, like a seal. The guard lowered his gun, and cautiously Sherlock lowered his arms.

Following the guard to his Kaar's booth Sherlock took in the room. It was more like a hunting lodge than a pub, stuffed animals lined the walls. The tables and chairs were roughhewn lumber, and the bar was an impressive tree trunk split in half. A slim bartender looked coolly at him, sky blue eyes peering out from under a blonde forelock. Sherlock gifted him with a flicker of a smile before sliding into Kaar's booth.

"My doctor always tells me cigarettes will kill me." Sherlock said wryly. He extended his hand, "Sherlock Holmes."

Kaar ignored his hand and returned to his drink.

"Your doctor? Would that be Dr. Watson?"

Sherlock stiffened.

Shaking the ice in his empty tumbler at the bartender  he spoke to Sherlock. "I know who you are.  What will you drink?"

"Vodka is fine."

Kaar gestured at his glass and held up two fingers.

"So..." Kaar's voice was effortlessly deep; booming like a cave in a sea cliff. "Why have you come Mr. Sherlock Holmes? " He leaned over, flooding Sherlocks nose with the stench of an eastern block industrial grade cologne. "And why have you put your head in the lion's mouth?"

The bartender brought two fresh drinks, Sherlock felt his gaze on him, he cut his eyes up, gracing the

Nordic prince with a flicker of silver, before answering Kaar.

"I come to make peace and to get my Doctor back." Sherlock made his face a mask, and looked unblinking at Kaar.

Kaar looked just as hard at Sherlock. Finally he spoke.

"What do I care for your peace?"

"Moriarty started a war with me. Once he was gone, Moran continued the war with me. I had to take a lot of people down to get to him. Now he is gone." Sherlock tipped back his glass and drank half. "I am tired of war.  We are men of the world, You and I Kaar.  We know, there will always be someone like you.  Someone who controls the larceny, so that you fleece the sheep without killing them.  Right?" Sherlock sat back and waited.  Kaar studied him.

"Yes, Mr. Holmes. There is always a Prince of thieves."

"Moran could have been that prince. But he continued the war. I find no joy in chasing down one Prince, only to see another rise. The game I hunt is murderers, blackmailers, kidnappers.  There is no reason for you or I to ever cross paths again. Once..." Sherlock held up his forefinger, "Once you release John Watson, you have my word, even should you expand to England, I will not come after you."

Sherlock finished his drink and waited.

Kaar frowned at him, then a rumble in his chest rolled into a full throated laugh. He laughed. For a full minute, while Sherlock tried to maintain a passive face.  Kaar at last stopped to catch his breath, then looked at Sherlock again and was convulsed with laughter again. Finally he laid a hand the size of a oar blade on Sherlock's shoulder and grinned.

"Oh, you are a brave one, my friend. And you think so highly of yourself." Kaar wiped his sleeve across his eyes to dry any errant tears. Sherlock flared, knocking the big man's arm off his shoulder. This set off another thirty seconds of giggling, during which he waved at the bartender for more drink.  Miffed, Sherlock lit a cigarette to endeavor to bring some gravitas back to the situation.

The bodyguard intercepted the bartender and brought the drinks over himself. He pulled up a hard back chair and sat opposite his boss, a cold eye fixed on Sherlock.

Finally, gasping, Kaar looked at his bodyguard.

"Claus, do we have Dr. Watson?"

Puzzled Claus shook his head. "No. Who is he?"

Kaar turned to Sherlock. "We don't operate like that, Mr. Sherlock Holmes. If I have a problem with you, then I kill you. It is much simpler and faster."

"Someone has him, and you are the only one left."

"I leave that dramatic stuff to the English and the Italians. I am not going to kill your grandmother if you misbehave.  Just you. Problem solved. Right Claus?"

"Ya.". Claus leaned back, sucking on a tooth.

"Maybe you missed one of Moran's people. Or maybe someone else is mad at you.  It is not my way.  As for giving me permission to run my business anywhere I want, that is very nice of you. Do you give a dog permission to lick its own balls?"

Claus snorted at this, and casually stuck his right hand into his jacket to loosen his gun in its holster.

Sherlock lifted both hands, palms out. "Okay.  I see I have come a long way for nothing." His phone vibrated in his pocket, he looked at the screen under the table.

**Can you come get me?  In Sandhurst Jail. Please keep it quiet.  JW**

Sherlock's head jerked a bit in surprise and it took even his quick mind three seconds to organize this information in his head.

"Well, I will be off then." Sherlock stood, and Claus did too.

"So soon?" Kaar smiled. "Claus will give you a ride back to the airport."

"No. Not necessary.  I will catch a cab."

"Don't be foolish my brave young man.  There are no cabs out here after 10 o'clock. Claus will drive you. It will be his pleasure."

Seeing no way out, Sherlock shrugged.

"Fine." he picked up his cigarettes and strode out, getting in front of Claus. Sherlock slipped his pack of smokes back into his coat pocket, and deftly pulled out and palmed the square of semtex. As they reached the front door, Sherlock suddenly stopped.

"My coat." he dodged behind the coat check counter. The jackets were on hangers, on a rack in a tiny walk in closet. Sherlock grabbed his with one hand while taking a deep whiff through his nose. A leather parka reeked of the same strong cologne that Kaar was wearing.  Sherlock dropped the plastic explosive in it’s' pocket and turned to go just as Claus came around the counter.

"Ready." Sherlock said, slipping into his jacket. Claus grunted and lead the way out of the building and past Kaar's town car to an old Volvo sedan. Sherlock understood. Blood in the town car would ruin the upholstery.

Once seated in the passenger side of the front seat, Sherlock checked his phone. The number John texted from was unknown. But since he had texted from it, maybe Sherlock could text back.

**On my way, be there by morning.**

He thought about signing it, but then recalled the admonition to keep it quiet.  He left it unsigned and hit send.

The car tipped heavily as Claus got in.

"We are going to Amsterdam, right? I want to get my ticket ordered."

Claus grunted. "Sure." but as he pulled out onto the motorway he turned south. Sherlock pretended not to notice. He pulled off his right shoe, groaning slightly.

"What?" Claus asked, looking suspicious.

Sherlock tipped the shoe up and dropped a pebble into his palm. "Stone in shoe."

He busied himself making an airline reservation on his BlackBerry. Claus kept driving, further into the country. Finally Sherlock grunted "Done", and shut his phone off.

"Any chance we can stop at a store on the way? I need some more cigarettes."

Claus didn't answer. He stopped at a t shaped intersection and looked for cross traffic.

"I said I need some more cigarettes." Sherlock repeated belligerently.

"I don't think that will be a problem." Claus smiled as his right hand drifted to his holstered gun under his left arm.

Sherlock leaned over and in a swift sure move dragged the box cutter razor blade that he had pulled from his shoe across Claus's throat.

Claus forgot about the gun as both hands rose to his throat; he dipped his chin in a desperate effort to keep his neck from bleeding out.

Sherlock reached across the big man and opened his door. Claus glared at him and reached for him with one hand, but blood squirted out of the gaping wound and he quickly grabbed his neck again. Sherlock dipped into Claus coat pockets until he found his cell phone.

"Out!" He leaned back and shoved Claus out with his feet in the man’s ribs. Claus toppled out and Sherlock scooted over, as the car drifted across the highway. Once behind the wheel, he turned the car around. As the car headlights washed over him, Sherlock saw Claus now huddled on his knees, his shirt a solid dripping red. He sped past him back to the Black Bear.

As he drove, Sherlock flicked thru Claus's incoming phone calls on his phone.  The last ten numbers were the same. Sherlock texted to this number:  "Afgelopen. Op mijn weg." He then tossed the phone onto the seat beside him.

His own phone vibrated in his pocket. He checked the screen.

**"Okay. See you then. Don't tell my wife."**

 Sherlock gave a wry smile and pocketed his phone.

As he pulled into the parking lot of the club, Claus's phone played the chorus of Abba's "Fernando". Picking it up he saw the call was from Kaar, or at least he assumed that was who Papa Bear was. Sherlock dropped his voice to a husky bass and answered monosyllabically.

"Ya?"

"Kom me maar halen." It was an impatient Kaar, who didn't even wait for a response.

Sherlock parked the Volvo and rolled down the window. In the icy darkness he had a clear view of the door. Kaar came out, in the same leather parka that Sherlock had dropped the block of symtex into.  He waited as Kaar strode impatiently toward the town car. Once he was far enough from the door to not damage the club, Sherlock texted the number to the detonator.

It was exceedingly neat. A flash of light and Kaar was simply gone. Nothing left but his boots, standing where he had been.

For a full three minutes Sherlock was embroiled in a white hot rage. That could have been John. All those years ago, his fine brave, sturdy friend, reduced to a pair of boots by that very same block of symtex.  Sherlock struggled to get enough oxygen.  John must have known what was in store for him, that's why he collapsed once the parka was off.

Sherlock turned the Volvo on and drove away. John was waiting for him, boots and all, in a Sandhurst Jail. He couldn't wait.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thinking ahead to season 3 and the obvious *shudders* wedding, caused me to imagine a Sherlock built to Moffat's specification. That would mean, No Gay Subtext. No Gay Anything. With John married off to Mary, who will "work with" Sherlock now? The logical answer is the forensics specialist who has always been mad for him and willing to do anything he asks. And she has better lab equipment than he does. Don't worry. Moffat's Sherlock is Asexual. Married only to his work. You wont have to sit through any awkward Molly/Sherlock.
> 
> How would John handle being replaced? What would that do to the dynamics of his marriage? When the longed for miracle finally happens, and Sherlock comes back, why is it that John finds he isn't happy? Instead of joy, there is only disappointment and niggling resentment as John watches Sherlock and Molly run the streets while he tends to his marriage and family.
> 
> I'm taking this bit by bit and letting it lead me where it will. It is more an exercise than story.

John waited. The two lads from Sandhurst Royal Academy were let out first. The van was waiting for them. Old grey man, Chester it turned out was his name, waited until breakfast was served and then checked himself out.

"See you later, Doctor." he winked and then John was alone. The chitter and hum of a busy office just out of sight made him feel absurd. A grown man, drying out in a drunk tank while just the other side of the door telephones were ringing and information was passed along. Jokes were told. He even heard his own name mentioned in passing.

"We got a famous celebrity last night."

"Who? Prince Harry?"

"Dr. Watson."

" Watson?"

"Yeah, of Sherlock Holmes and ...Course he'd been whacked on the head and his wallet was gone, so he could be the Queen Mum for all we know."

There were some laughs and a door cracked open so rookie policeman could take a peek at him. The door slammed.

"Nah, that ain’t him. That guy's too old and fat. And he's got a mustache."

John's ears burned. He would have to hit the gym more often. Maybe lose the mustache.

"What for?" his own voice  spoke out loud surprised him.  "So I can look like the old John?"  So maybe Sherlock would let him play?  He scrubbed his face with his knuckles and surprisingly wished he had a drink.

The base note of a cello reverberated through the office on the other side of the door. All chat stopped. John's lungs responded with a long inhale. The hair on the back of his neck stood up. Sherlock was here, and he was sweeping through the crew of uniformed officers like a headmaster through a pack of Primary school students.

The door opened. Rookie policeman hurried in.

"John Ruddy. Your friend is here to bail you out."

John stood. Ruddy?  Like the name Molly had said.  Could it be one of Moran’s men?

"Which friend?"

"I think he said Victor. Um. Treev. Something."

"Trevor." John frowned, then smiled.  Sherlock.

The rookie opened the lock and slid the door open.

Sherlock came into the cell area, in black leathers, with wraparound sunglasses.  John fought the urge to laugh.

"Come on John, I have to be back in London."

John signed some paperwork, nearly writing Watson until Sherlock stopped his hand, then remembering Ruddy.  The desk sergeant scolded John and made a comment about having him checked for concussion.

"Not to worry. I have his helmet." Sherlock smiled. Outside on the side walk was parked a silver  BMW R100RS .

"Bloody Perfect." John was beginning to make a habit of speaking aloud.  Sherlock stopped and cocked his head.

"What? Oh the bike. Its nice, isn't it? Great for getting around traffic. Here. You can wear my helmet."

John shook his head in disbelief. If it wasn't enough that Sherlock was an El Greco Adonis who oozed posh charm, now he was action man, with Matrix shades and a throw back bike to the days when Brits made the best spies. John was horrified at the conflicting emotions of hero worship and stone cold jealousy that made him clamp his jaws. To cover up he slammed Sherlock’s helmet on his head, the ultimate mask. But a wrap around helmet didn't hide the head roll John was forced to perform to release the stiffness in his neck.

"You don't approve?  I made better time. You would be waiting until tea time if I'd taken the train and then a cab."

"No. It’s fine. I appreciate you coming so fast."

John circled the bike. Silver paint;  like mercury.  The windscreen was silver as well, and wrapped over the handlebars ending with a small window.  On the motorways it must fly.  But the seat was flat with only a hint of a roll bar on the back.  He would be pressed ass to balls on the back of that bike, and he wasn't sure his ego could take it.

"What then? You think I will smash up and kill myself?"

"Probably.  Most motorcyclists do.  But I'm not going to ride all the way back to London on that,"

Sherlock shrugged. "Suit yourself; I will drop you off at the train station."  Sherlock legged over and fired up the bike. He turned with a silly grin that combined with the glasses and the mop of curly still-black hair to make John feel a million years old.  "Get on."

John climbed clumsily on and had to wiggle his ass to get centered. The helmet banged into the back of Sherlock's spine.  John turned his head to the side and snuggled up to that tight round ass to fit.  He was forced to wrap his arms around the butter soft leather jacket that snugged Sherlock's body.

"Ready?"

John nodded, the bike roared off, banging off the sidewalk and whipping onto the roadway.  John clung tight to Sherlock’s lithe body.  His stomach swooped on the tight turns and he held his breath as they zig-zagged through traffic.  It was just as Sherlock said. Fast. Efficient.  And bloody fun. Too soon they reached the train station and John reluctantly slid off.  He took the helmet off and Sherlock laughed and reached over to smooth down a cowlick on his head.  John smiled, and then remembered he had no money for the train.

"Um, Sherlock, do you have any cash? I was mugged last night and they got my wallet."

"Oh. Sure." Sherlock reached for his wallet, then thought. "Wait. Here. Take the whole thing. You can be Victor for today. There is 200 pounds in there. And a valid I.D."

"A valid I.D. If I'm 6 foot with black hair."

"Lucky for you, Victor was going through a bleach blond phase when he took this picture. And you can't tell height from a photo. Keep it. It’s blown for me now that I've used it at a police station.  You never know when you may want to have a romp. Though why you picked Sandhurst…there's only... Oh!  Your army days."

"You can't turn it off, can you." John felt his ears burning. Why the fuck was Sherlock the only one who could save him from Sherlock.

"Well, cheers. I will keep it.”  John held up the wallet.  “ A Souvenir. Our last time undercover."  John worked harder than he ever had in his life at appearing chuffed at the whole thing.  His smile felt practically plasticine, and his empty stomach burned with a sudden influx of bile.

Sherlock's smile quivered, then vanished.  He nodded and fired up the motorcycle.

"Right. Then.  I won't tell Mary I found you.  But she is at my flat right now, waiting for word."

"Oh shit. I forgot. Right. I will call her ... Um, do you have a cell?"

"No. But Victor does." he fished an old style Nokia from his coat pocket.  "Keep that as well.  Right.  I have to go, got another 26 prisoners to interrogate."

Sherlock swung his head around to check for traffic, and then sped away without a second glance John's way.

John turned into the station, as stiff as a wooden soldier. Nothing would ever be right again. He bought his ticket. He called Mary's number. She picked up on the first ring.

"Mary, it’s me.  I'm alright.  Just had a bit of a mishap." he could hear her voice, high pitched, questions flying. "I will explain it all when I get home.  Please don't worry I'm fine.  I will talk to you in an hour. Goodbye."

He disconnected. Then worried she would dial back he shut off the phone.  He had 20 minutes to wait for his train. Time enough to dash outside, to a convenience store on the corner and buy a half pint of whiskey and a pack of gum.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thinking ahead to season 3 and the obvious *shudders* wedding, caused me to imagine a Sherlock built to Moffat's specification. That would mean, No Gay Subtext. No Gay Anything. With John married off to Mary, who will "work with" Sherlock now? The logical answer is the forensics specialist who has always been mad for him and willing to do anything he asks. And she has better lab equipment than he does. Don't worry. Moffat's Sherlock is Asexual. Married only to his work. You wont have to sit through any awkward Molly/Sherlock.
> 
> How would John handle being replaced? What would that do to the dynamics of his marriage? When the longed for miracle finally happens, and Sherlock comes back, why is it that John finds he isn't happy? Instead of joy, there is only disappointment and niggling resentment as John watches Sherlock and Molly run the streets while he tends to his marriage and family.
> 
> I'm taking this bit by bit and letting it lead me where it will. It is more an exercise than story.

John returned home to a frantic wife.

He gave Mary a vague excuse; blaming his absence on a mugging and a misunderstanding.  He reminded her that her father wouldn't appreciate the Moffat name coming up in connection with a mysterious missing weekend, so he had kept quiet and come home on his own.  Really, there was nothing to discuss.

Then he took her shopping for baby gear, and ended up at an architect’s office to discuss the remodel for the nursery; nothing but the best for the first Moffat grandchild.  If Mary tried to question his lost weekend, he turned the conversation to the baby. Soon it was forgotten.

John used the baby for his own needs as well.

Whenever he ran into Molly at Bart’s cafeteria he shoved his soon to be child to the forefront in his mind. Sherlock never made the papers anymore, but John was familiar enough with his methods that he could spot the moment Sherlock leant a hand. The headlines for an open case would switch from "baffling" to "arrests made".   After, John would have a brief cruel image of Sherlock, standing in silhouette, backlit by cool morning light through the windows of their flat, with that relaxed stillness, like post-coital sated -ness, that would stay with him for the rest of the day. Those rare days when Sherlock smiled naturally and laughed unselfconsciously; and they enjoyed each other's company.  John would cook, Sherlock would putter. They might take a walk, or watch telly.

 John always kept those nights open.  After a case, he would turn down shift work, or dates.

But none of that mattered anymore.  When he saw Lestrade score a big win, John would think long and hard about his child. He would imagine soccer goals if it was a boy and dressage ribbons if it was a girl. He would work over his list of favorite names, trying them on, until eventually he forgot about Sherlock.

He left the moustache on, even though he knew Mary didn't like kissing him with it brushing roughly against her top lip. At least when John looked in the mirror he didn't see the old John Watson; Army Doctor, but Dr. John Hamish Watson , ER physician at St Bartholomew, soon to be Director, if the rumors were to be believed.  A man of substance.  A man with clout.  A man by any comparison, even compared to the eccentric Sherlock Holmes.

 

And then his boy came.

Suddenly it was much easier to push Sherlock out of his thoughts. His own brave squalling child in his arms was object enough for devotion. They named him Roger, after Mary's grandfather. Not John's first choice, he wanted Kenneth, but Moffat said it was only fair, since the baby would carry John's sir name. So Kenneth was the middle name and they had a lovely christening and everyone showed but Sherlock. Molly transported a gift from the detective, a wonderfully detailed mobile of the solar system for the baby's crib. A card with the package read: "So he will know" and John barked a laugh and was filled with warmth and sadness at the same time.

Mary's aunt and uncle were Roger's godparents; a thought that made John determined to live a long life.

Often John felt Mary’s family saw him as more of a sperm donor than a father, but when it was just he and Roger, he brimmed with love and sometimes called the baby boy Kenneth.

 

Time passed.

Once John called Sherlock and offered to write up any cases he had solved that might be interesting.

"You know," John had spoken casually into his phone while simultaneously thwacking himself in the head with a letter opener to keep from listening too closely to the velvet rope of a voice, "to keep the public interested in your services."

"That won't be necessary.  I have more work than I can keep up with.  It seems being a discrete consulting detective is even more popular than a famous one.  How is Kenneth?"

"Fine." John had flipped the letter opener around in his hand and was now rather strenuously whacking himself with the enameled handle, so hard it hurt.  So hard Sherlock could hear it.

"Is everything okay, John? Are you self-flagellating?”

John ignored the question.

"How...how...how did you know Kenneth?  That I call him that?"

"You always liked that name; you mentioned it to me once, years ago, a lifetime ago. So when the name turned up on the announcement, I just put it together.  Are you okay? Is there something I can do for you?"

"No.  Nope.  Just wanted to offer my help. Well, I must go. Got a meeting. Bye."

John hung up before he made an ass of himself.  Before he could say "That's Fantastic" or something worse, like:  "I miss us." Or "You never call."

He pulled a bottle out from his locker and took a swig. Then two…one more. Then he tucked it back inside, picked up his lukewarm cup of tea and went back to work.

 

 

Roger (Kenneth) was two years old when Molly made the papers. He came into work on a Wednesday morning and the E.R. was buzzing.

 

John was Director of the ER by now.  All the rumors had come true, helped along by the Moffat's buying a new cat scan machine and installing a serenity garden. John had an office with a window on the same floor as the ER. He threaded his way through waiting patients and scurrying nurses. As he passed the nurses station Peachy called to him.

"Dr. Watson." The pale man hurried over. John marveled at the faintest shadow of a mustache that Peachy had been cultivating for weeks. Once John grew facial hair, it had become something of a fad.

"What is it?"

"Did you see what our Molly did?" Peachy lay a newspaper in John's hand, folded in thirds to read on the train. Looking back at him, smiling like it was Christmas was Molly Hooper.  The headline above the picture was in 3/4 inch type and proclaimed simply "London Woman Solves the Ripper Case"

John stopped in his tracks. His eyes searched the text for Sherlock's name.  It never appeared.  It was all Molly, she had used her skills as a forensic Medical examiner to go over the case, using her ties to Scotland Yard she applied some new analytical experiments and a new compound she had mixed up to the few bits of hard evidence found in the case.  She would get a title out of this. Dame Hooper.

 

"That's the Knighthood in the bag." John spoke out loud.

"What?" Peachy asked.  John had forgotten he was standing there.

"How about our Molly then?" John smiled and shoved the paper into Peachy's arms.

 

John walked on to his office.

"New compound" that was Sherlock. He was always trying to glean more information from blood evidence. When John had first met him he was working on a new method.

John reached for the phone to call Molly and congratulate her but he hung up before the call went through.

Absurd! His jealousy was like onion on his breath.  He tried again.

This time it rang through, but he hung up before the second ring. With a grumble he called Sherlock's old phone number and pretended he didn't care if he got through.

"Hello?" The voice on the phone was like a river at the bottom of a gorge. John felt an absurd calm spread through his chest.

"Sherlock."

"John." There was amusement in his voice, but he sounded pleased non the less.

"I see you solved the Ripper case."

"I helped a bit. Molly did most of it."

"Molly? Really?"

"She is surprisingly thorough in her work. I set her on a path. "

"And invented a new blood test." John leaned back in his chair, tracing his nose with the rubber end of a pencil.

“To be fair, I invented that a year ago and we were looking for a case to try it out on. Molly thought of the Ripper as the ultimate cold case. So really it was her idea."

"Mmmmm, " John enjoyed the patter of Sherlock's speech. The rise and fall of his inflection. The crisp way he said "ultimate".  "What if she is knighted from this, or what ever they call it? That's your knighthood."

"John, you know I never seek fame. I have turned down two already."

"But what if she gets a Nobel Prize?"

Sherlock snorted. "They never give Nobel Prizes for anything useful."

"What if this time they do?"

"My name is on it, in small letters, but for now, this is Molly's time to shine. Maybe she will find some man to date."

John felt uncertain in this territory.

"Is she getting on your nerves? Still trying to seduce you?"

"John, this isn't like you, trying to peep into my bedroom."

"I'm not..."

"She doesn't try to seduce me, I hate to disappoint you."

"No...I...what I ..."

"We are colleagues. There is no physical aspect to our..."

"Forget it! Sherlock, forget it! I didn't mean anything."

There was a padded silence, like from inside a confessional as Sherlock listened and judged John from his frantic babbling.

"I understand you finally received the directorship."

John blushed furiously. He didn't mean to fish for complements, but now Sherlock assumed John needed his ego assuaged.  He snapped.

"That is not why I called. I am not your child. You don't have to pat my head." hot pinpricks of tears welled in his eyes.

Sherlock listened and John went on shouting into the dark quiet.

"I only called to congratulate you on solving a hundred year old case..."

"One hundred and twenty"

"A famous fucking case, Sherlock, and you turn it around as if I'm creeping around your backdoor for scraps."

"I will pass on your congratulations to Molly then, shall I?"

John hung up.  Then he picked up the phone and ripped it out of the wall, swept his desk clear with his arm, punched a seascape under glass that Mary had bought for his office.  Kicked his wastepaper basket. With nothing left to throw or kick he stormed out of his office, passed his frightened secretary without a word and found his way to the back stairwell.

Running.  Against the pain in his knee, against the knot in his throat until his breathing was scorched, as if he was running across the Afghan sand for his very life. He had to run faster. His legs were wooden, he roared like a train.  Finally to the roof.

It was cold and raining. John stood under the rain, let it soak him. Plaster his hair, drip off his absurd mustache. Mouth open, impossible to budge this horrible pain in his chest. What could he do?

He walked to the edge. Why here again. He couldn't leave and staying was killing him.

He didn't know how long he stood there, his socks were drenched. He should be cold but felt only numb. He heard the scrape of the roof door.

Terrific. Director found stark raving on Bart's roof by an orderly coming up for an illicit smoke.

"John?"

Molly's voice, just behind him. Why her?

He felt a sheet drape his shoulders. He turned unseeing and dropped his forehead on her shoulder, tears came hot and his lungs finally let go for him to sob.

She patted his back and held him tight.  It made perfect sense.  If anyone understood how he felt it was her.

 


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thinking ahead to season 3 and the obvious *shudders* wedding, caused me to imagine a Sherlock built to Moffat's specification. That would mean, No Gay Subtext. No Gay Anything. With John married off to Mary, who will "work with" Sherlock now? The logical answer is the forensics specialist who has always been mad for him and willing to do anything he asks. And she has better lab equipment than he does. Don't worry. Moffat's Sherlock is Asexual. Married only to his work. You wont have to sit through any awkward Molly/Sherlock.
> 
> How would John handle being replaced? What would that do to the dynamics of his marriage? When the longed for miracle finally happens, and Sherlock comes back, why is it that John finds he isn't happy? Instead of joy, there is only disappointment and niggling resentment as John watches Sherlock and Molly run the streets while he tends to his marriage and family.
> 
> I'm taking this bit by bit and letting it lead me where it will. It is more an exercise than story.

At 4:30 in the afternoon at St. Bartholomew Hospital,  John was in the middle of an interview. A stern grey haired woman who looked as if she had been through every war in the 20th and 21st century was a strong contender for a vacant ER nurse position.

"Ms. Cooper,..." John circled a spot on her application.

"Coop. I prefer just Coop. Not Ms. Or Miss, or Mrs."

"Ahem. Right. Coop. It seems you have been out of practice for four years?"

The square jawed woman leaned forward.

"Not collecting a paycheck, no, but still working. I was seeing after my mother. She passed away from renal failure."

"Ah. Quite right. Well we work a swing shift around here. Is that..."

"Not a problem at all. I like the variety."

"Okay. Well I have two more..."

The door of his office flew open. An out of breath nurse stuck her head in.

"There's been a terrible accident. Children, a lot, Dr. Scott sent me to say we might need extra hands."

John stood and fished his stethescope out of his drawer.

"On my way. I'm sorry Mrs... Coop...we will ..."

"I'm coming too. I can squeeze a ventilator or bandage a wound." She followed him out the door. They jogged behind the running nurse, and John became aware of the omnipresent siren wail, which meant multiple ambulances dropping off.  His adrenalin surged and he sprinted past the A and E nurse bursting through the doors into chaos.

A car had crashed into a playground  smashing a bunch of kids at a birthday party.  John's mind flashed an image of screaming children and frightened mothers before his eyes. He shook his head to clear it and focused on the task at hand, triaging worst to best.

Peachy, who had in the last year become a fine doctor, was in charge that day, but he was at that moment desperately trying to save a waxy little girl who was no longer breathing.

John bellowed assignments to the remaining staff, looking at heavy bloodloss and possible brain contusions first, handing Cooper the clean, stitch and bandage cases.

Chaos gave way to a kind of terrible order. Stabalized and sent on to O.R.  or assigned a bed for rest and observation, the crowd of children and hovering parents were steadily sorted.  Peachy was a wreck. The waxy little girl had not been saved and the young doctor was inconsolable. John told him to see who was left in the waiting room.  A civilian doctor might have sent Peachy home for the day, but John knew the only way to replace the image of his failure was to shove another patient in his hands.

 

"This way, Mr. Holmes."

John snapped around. Peachy was leading the way, holding aside a curtain for a very put-out looking Sherlock in a wheelchair. John's mind balked at the image. A young girl, maybe 12?, with a face as alabastor as Sherlock's and an expression of murderous intensity, pushed his wheelchair, dairing anyone else to try and take it from her.

"Sherlock?" John called.

The privacy curtain swept closed.

A nurse cleared her throat and John turned back to the exam he was giving the last of the children. The little boy had an egg sized lump on his forehead but otherwise seemed as chipper as a sparrow.  He was still clutching a toy firetruck that he had been playing with when the accident happened.

With a bit of plaster on his forehead, more for the parents sake than necessity, John patted the kid's knee and smiled at the parents.

Looking around,  John saw the room had been cleared.  He turned to Cooper.

"Can you start on Monday?"

"Yes. Doctor."

"Come by Monday morning and check in with H.R. "

Cooper smiled. John noticed a splash of blood across her starched white blouse.

"Good work Coop." he shook her hand and hurried to the curtained exam room Sherlock had disappeared into.

John swept back the curtain to find a grumpy detective and a pitbull of a teenager.

"Sherlock?" John didn't know where to begin. The teenaged girl, with hair as black as Sherlocks, but thin and straight, gripped Sherlock's hand tightly and nearly growled at John.  Sherlock looked with amusement from the girl to John and back.

"Anna, this is my friend Dr. John Watson. " He accentuated the word friend and Anna relaxed. Her hostility turned to open curiosity.

"Anna, pleased to meet you." John extended his hand. Anna shrunk back and Sherlock gave John a quick shake of the head.

"Hello John, how are the children? Did everyone pull..."

John shook his head once.

"The girl?" Sherlock stated as much as asked.

"Yes. How did..."

The curtain was whipped back again and Mary Moffat -Watson stood before them, a trembling mess. At the sight of Sherlock she burst into tears and threw herself across his chest.  Sherlock looked as dumbstruck as John and Anna.

"Thank you, thank you, oh....I can never thank you enough." she actually kissed his cheek and hugged around his neck. John began to have the ghost of a notion.

"You were there?" John spoke softly to Mary.

Mary turned, seeing John for the first time.

"John. He saved Roger."

The confusion on Sherlock's face lifted.

"Was that Kenneth?"  He actually looked peeved with himself for not realizing. "I was so busy calculating how many seconds it would take for the car to hit the swing, I honestly didn't have a moment to notice."

Mary grabbed John's forearm and pointed at the detective.

"He ran in front of the car and pulled Roger out of the way. "

"It was the sand, it slowed me down, or I would have cleared the bumper."  Sherlock waved at his leg, which was propped up on the wheelchair rest.  

John stammered. "I ...I didn't see Roger here."

"He was fine. " Mary turned back to Sherlock, tears welling in her eyes. "You saved his life. Any thing, Sherlock, Anything you need, "

John was seized with that oddest of sensations, tragedy avoided, without any effort on your part.  Like when you miss your flight, and then the plane goes down. He could have been the bereft parent Peachy had to talk to.

"You saved my Kenneth." John couldn't catch his breath.

"John, " Sherlock tried to make him see reason. "I was walking in the park with Anna, and I heard the car tires hit the curb. I looked over to see the driver,an elderly man, was having a stroke. Or seisure..." Sherlock began to trail off as he tried to determine which it was. Diagnosing second hand John filled in-

"Probably seizure."

"Quite right." Sherlock smiled brightly. "And I saw that he was in no condition to break or steer. I projected the trajectory of ..."

"He ran like a deer." Mary burst in. "Shouting to clear away and run. He caught everyone's attention. We started to grab kids and I looked around for Roger and he was on the swing set with his back to the car."

Mary had to stop as a sob choked her off.

"I could see that the boy on the swing..." Sherlock 

"Kenneth" John whispered.

"...was too close to get away. So I sprinted for him. And as I said, the sand around the swings slowed me down. So here I am. A fractured femur. That child doctor says I shall be in a full leg cast. Is that true?""

Sherlock seemed horrifed at the thought.

John bent over and kissed Sherlock on the forehead. He straightened up, eyes shining.  Sherlock was slack jawed with surprise.

"Yes . The leg has to be immobilized. Lots of rest and crutches.

"Crutches! How will I Work?"

"From home, on your computer. London will have to survive without you for at least two months."

"I can help you, Dad." The girl said.

John blinked in surprise. Sherlock smiled at the girl.

"Of course. You will be my legs. Anna. Would you call Molly and tell her where we are. She must be wondering where we got off to." He handed the girl his phone. John turned to Mary.

"Dear, would you mind showing Anna where the waiting room is?  I'll take Sherlock up to get his leg set."  Anna gripped the wheelchair tighter. Sherlock patted her hand.  John tried to reasure the girl.  "Then I will come down and take you to his room."

Anna looked set to dig in on this but Sherlock gave her a smile.

"Yes. Good idea. That way Molly will know where to find you."

Mary gave Sherlock one last kiss and put a hand on the girls shoulder who allowed herself to be stiffly  guided out of the room.

 

Once the two women were gone,  John wheeled Sherlock out of A and E and down a hallway to orthopedics.  Bending his head to look down at Sherlock as he pushed John asked the obvious.

"Anna?"

"Molly's."  Sherlock spoke gruffly.  "She adopted her.  We were working on a sex trafficking case. Anna was a result of that. Her parents had sold her. There was no where for her to go back to. Molly insisted that she stay with us. "

John's face darkened. "Was.... Anna, she wasn't..."

Sherlock spoke in a monotone.

"As bad as you can imagine."

"Did you adopt her?"  


"Molly did. The case worker said that we were a good fit for a girl as traumatized as Anna."

John grunted. Of course. A child sexually abused would feel most comfortable in a climate where no sex happened at all.

"Dad?" John's eyebrow twitched.

Sherlock rolled his eyes, which made John laugh.

"Her idea. I suggested Sherlock, but she started calling me Dad about a month ago. The case worker says it makes her feel more secure."

"She calls Molly...?"

"Mum. Exactly."

John's face nearly split with a repressed grin. He had to look up to hide it from Sherlock.

"What does Uncle Mycroft think?" John started to giggle. Sherlock joined him. They wheeled into orthopedics laughing.

 

 


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thinking ahead to season 3 and the obvious *shudders* wedding, caused me to imagine a Sherlock built to Moffat's specification. That would mean, No Gay Subtext. No Gay Anything. With John married off to Mary, who will "work with" Sherlock now? The logical answer is the forensics specialist who has always been mad for him and willing to do anything he asks. And she has better lab equipment than he does. Don't worry. Moffat's Sherlock is Asexual. Married only to his work. You wont have to sit through any awkward Molly/Sherlock.
> 
> How would John handle being replaced? What would that do to the dynamics of his marriage? When the longed for miracle finally happens, and Sherlock comes back, why is it that John finds he isn't happy? Instead of joy, there is only disappointment and niggling resentment as John watches Sherlock and Molly run the streets while he tends to his marriage and family.
> 
> I'm taking this bit by bit and letting it lead me where it will. It is more an exercise than story.

  John didn't see Sherlock again for months.

                He expected that he might see him when he came in to have his cast removed, or for the requisite physical therapy to return his leg to full use, but none of that happened.

                John tried to initiate a return to their friendship.

                Those few moments in the hospital, just he and Sherlock, had been so wonderful that John felt quite giddy for days afterward. He mailed an invitation to Kenneth's birthday party.  Molly showed up with a gift from both of them; an oversize, brightly colored book about trains.  Kenneth's eyes shown like fairy lights at the pictures of rushing masculine engines, and John smiled warmly and took Mary’s hand in his and gave it a squeeze.   The fact that Mary looked up at him with surprise was something he chose to ignore.

                For New Years, the Moffats always put on the largest party in London.  Again Sherlock ignored the invitation.  Molly called and explained that they were in the middle of a big case and “…couldn't break away.  You understand, right John?”

                John understood.  He knew Sherlock never went to parties unless he was trailing a suspect through a fancy dress ball, or on the few occasions when John had scheduled some sort of informal holiday gatherings at Baker Street.  What John didn’t understand was why he keep imagining that Sherlock would find an invitation from his old flat mate to be suddenly irresistible? Yet each time Sherlock didn't show, John found it crushingly disappointing.

 

                So he quit sending them out.

                Reluctantly, John turned his focus back to his career.  He certainly had enough on his plate to keep his mind off Sherlock.  His officer's training, combined with the exceedingly powerful clout of Mary's father, turned John from the darkened copper he was when Sherlock leapt to his death to the bright, shining, newly-minted penny he was now.  Hospitals competed for him.  He went from being in charge of A and E at Barts to Hospital Administrator and sat on the medical boards of every major hospital in the south of England.

                Kenneth grew big and strong. Taking after the Moffat side of the family, he was a head taller than his classmates when he started his First year.  John speculated that Kenneth would be taller than him before he left Primary.

                Mary was in charge of several charitable organizations, which filled a lot of her time, when she wasn't aiding her father with new acquisitions and real estate deals.  Her face often graced the newspaper's society and business pages.  Married to a prominent physician, daughter of one of the wealthiest men in England, she was one half of a power couple.  John often looked at her in amazement.  She was a force of nature.

 

                No, there was no time for John to feel sorry for himself just because his old chum had given him the cold shoulder.  John was busy from 5:30 in the morning until 9 or 10 at night. He and Mary often had meals together with their cell phones sitting next to their salad forks.  They became adept at putting out metaphorical fires over the soup course, finally tucking away their mobiles before desert and coffee.

                Part of John had never been so fulfilled.

                Part of him, Old John, was shrieking to the night skies from an unknown roof in a nightmare dreamscape.  But Old John, (the John who shot without question and jumped chasms and swore and punched and felt the quick thrill of hot blood pounding through his veins) was blocked off behind a cinderblock wall of New John's own making, and no one knew he was there.  

                Except once upon a time, Sherlock.

                So when John sometimes woke in the morning; his heart hammering, shouting into his pillow, he knew what and who it was, but he hid the stow-away easily from his wife as a simple nightmare and drowned the gasping burning ache in his throat with tea and buttoned himself tight in his smallest waistcoat. (The restriction disallowed deep breaths and forced emotion back down into the pit of his stomach).    By 10 a.m. he was Dr. J. H. Watson, Administrator, husband, father. Man to be reckoned with.

 

                One evening, after a long tedious  meeting at St. Barts explaining to the new A and E director, Peachy,  that there simply weren't enough funds for new equipment or the extra nurses he needed,  John stepped out the front door of Bart's.  Searching the street for a cab, he was delighted when one pulled up to the curb with an enthusiastic screech of brakes.

                Pleased , John raised a hand and stepped forward.

                The passenger side door flung open before the cab had stopped rocking and Sherlock legged out.

                John froze, hand stretched for the door.   Sherlock looked up, surprise dashing across his grey eyes to see John standing like a welcoming statue in his fine camel hair coat and high polished shoes, mouth locked in a strychnine grin, and the detective gave the smallest of pleased smiles.

                "John! Can you hold this cab for me, I will be just one minute."

                And in a swirl of coat tails he was gone, racing into the building.

                John groaned inwardly. His ears burned, cheeks flamed. How did Sherlock always manage to make him feel thrilled and small at the same time?  He was a grown man, godamnit. He shook off a rushed visitor who was attempting to squeeze into the open door of the livery cab.

                "It’s taken" John said in a voice as icy as Mycroft's had ever been, and like a bolt from the blue he suddenly understood Mycroft's perpetual sour attitude to his younger brother. The constant exclusion from Sherlock's attention, yet the presumption that he would always be on hand if needed.

                "Fuck" John muttered, climbing in the back. He determined that he would just take the cab and was about to give the cabbie his address, when Sherlock ran back, hard souled shoes dancing across the sidewalk, and the door flung open and Molly was shoved into the seat beside him, Sherlock pushing in behind her and giving a Whitechapel address to the driver as he slammed the door closed.

Molly smiled shyly at John and arranged herself more comfortably.  Her oversized bag clanked suspiciously and John could imagine there were at least three bottles of St. Bart's lab chemeicals going off to a crime scene.

                "It's good to see you Molly," John smiled amiably and leaned forward to peer around her, "Sherlock."

                "Are you going with us to the crime scene?" Molly chirped.

                "Uhm..." John looked over her head at Sherlock to see if he was wanted. He felt a thrill at the idea, even though he was sure to stain his camel coat. Sherlock never looked back; his head was bent over his phone as he texted rapidly.  John noticed with a pang that the hair at Sherlock’s temples was beginning to grey.  That seemed a cruel blow.  His own hair was thinning, and his body was softening, but it seemed an affront to nature for Sherlock to give in to the aging process, even if the grey did  make him look distinguished.

                "I'm not sure." John said to Molly. "How is Anna?"

                Molly's face lit up. The next 15 minutes were spent discussing children.

                "Anna is in school now, studying hard. She is a real whiz at chemistry."  Molly flashed a look at Sherlock, still scrolling through his phone.

                "Well, she has the both of you lab rats to learn from." John joked.

                "Private." Sherlock muttered.

                "What's that!" John asked.

                "Private school, of course.  Multinational.  The one all the diplomats send their kids to. Mycroft got us in."

                John smiled wryly.

                "Guess Mycroft has his uses after all."

                "Yes." Molly piped up. "Anna was afraid her accent and lack of English would make her a target, now she is one of the best English speakers in her grade."

                "That's wonderful." John's voice was thick in his throat.

                "What about Roger?" Molly asked.

                "Kenneth" Sherlock corrected.

                "Ta." John nodded to Sherlock for his acknowledgment of John's preferred name.  Sherlock's lip twitched though his eyes never left his phone screen. "He's up in The Lake Country, spending time with his grandparents." John looked out his window, suddenly terribly interested in the shabby store fronts as they crawled through Whitechapel.

                "Being inoculated by the Moffats."  Sherlock almost sneered, but when John snapped his head around he saw a glimpse of sympathy from his old and once very dear friend.

                John couldn't even be angry. It was only the truth. Grandfather Moffat would have Kenneth answering to Roger and riding polo ponies and speaking in a clipped superior tone that would take John weeks to get out of him. One day John would lose that battle, he already knew it.

                "He'll come back as posh as you." John joked, leaning over to give Sherlock a matey punch in the arm.

                "Can't be helped.  Can it? We want the finest for our children." Sherlock said in a dry monotone. John nodded unconsciously in agreement, a wave of something like sorrow washed over him.

                "Right here is fine." Sherlock said loudly to the driver, then turned to Molly. "We should walk up, there might be splatter on the sidewalk. Lestrade said it was very messy."

As the cab pulled to the curb, Sherlock opened the door and handed a wad of notes to the driver.

                "Please take Dr. Watson where ever he wishes to go. And keep the change."

                John had just been sliding across the seat after Molly to follow them when Sherlock spoke.

                "Oh." He stopped and tried not to look like a puppy left behind.

                "Goodbye John." Sherlock said and for the millionth time, un-dulled by repeated stabbings, John's heart was pierced through by Sherlock's sudden cool withdrawal.

                "Bye John!" Molly waved and then they both turned to study the sidewalk before them as they walked away. Sherlock pointed out items of interest and Molly avidly nodded, snapping pictures with a tiny camera she pulled out of her pocket.

                The cab pulled away from the curb.

                "Where you want to go?" The Pakistani accent was so thick that for a moment John was back in Afghanistan. At that second the John from behind the brick wall escaped. A fierce energy flooded Dr. Watson's weary frame.

                “Well why not?" John spoke aloud.

                "Sir?" The cabbie asked?

                "Kennsington" John spoke aloud, his voice crisp. "Start driving, I have to look up the address."   He pulled out his wallet and fished out an old well-thumbed business card. Phillip Wigginton,  London Attaché.   Doctors Without Borders.  "235 Hadley St." John said, and sat back in his seat with a laugh.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thinking ahead to season 3 and the obvious *shudders* wedding, caused me to imagine a Sherlock built to Moffat's specification. That would mean, No Gay Subtext. No Gay Anything. With John married off to Mary, who will "work with" Sherlock now? The logical answer is the forensics specialist who has always been mad for him and willing to do anything he asks. And she has better lab equipment than he does. Don't worry. Moffat's Sherlock is Asexual. Married only to his work. You wont have to sit through any awkward Molly/Sherlock.
> 
> How would John handle being replaced? What would that do to the dynamics of his marriage? When the longed for miracle finally happens, and Sherlock comes back, why is it that John finds he isn't happy? Instead of joy, there is only disappointment and niggling resentment as John watches Sherlock and Molly run the streets while he tends to his marriage and family.
> 
> I'm taking this bit by bit and letting it lead me where it will. It is more an exercise than story.

      Dr. Philip Wiggington opened his own door, his pale blue eyes sweeping over John with curiosity.

                "Hello?"

                "Watson" John extended his hand. "Dr. John Watson.  We met three years ago at a conference for emergency care in the field."

                "Oh?” Wigginton crouched slightly to lower his towering body closer to John’s height, and shook his hand.  “Come in.   I'm afraid I attend rather a lot of conferences...."

                "You tried to recruit me." John interrupted, and then realized how long ago that was.  "Oh. Do you still work with Doctors Without Borders.?"

                "Yes.  Oh, yes. Sure.  Still with D.W.B.  Can I take your coat? Dr. Watson, is it?”

                It seemed odd, in a house as large as this, that Wigginton didn't have a servant to help with the niceties of a proper entrance.  John had gotten so used to Toby, their manservant at Moffat Towers, that the concept of a person opening their own door to a stranger seemed odd.   

                "I'm afraid I'm between help at the moment.” Wigginton volunteered.  “Honestly, I've been away so much that it isn't worth the trouble to bring someone in."

                Wigginton hung John's obscenely expensive coat onto a coat rack and John's mouth pursed at the hook mark it was going to leave.

                'God what a git I've become.'  He thought.  Five years of soft living and he had turned into one of Mycroft’s Diogenes Club members.  Wigginton turned, sweeping his shaggy blonde hair out of his eyes with his right hand and smiled at John.

                "You know, I was just about to order  Chinese Takeout. Would you be interested? Or do you have plans for dinner?"

                John thought of the empty house waiting for him.  Mary and Roger, rather Kenneth, had gone north to the Moffat ancestral home for the holidays.  He thought of sweet and sour pork and eggrolls and his stomach growled.

                “That sounds incredible. Does your takeaway place have beer?"

                Wiggington flashed a wolfish grin. "No need. I have a case of stout in the study."

                John actually laughed. The sound was so foreign to his ears that he glanced about the hallway for a second to make sure it wasn't someone else.

                "That will do." John unbuttoned his suit jacket.

                "Brilliant!" Wigginton clapped John on the back. "Come with me, John, well get ourselves sorted."

                John couldn't recall the last time his step felt this light.  Wigginton led the way to the center of the house and opened double folding doors to a study converted into a billiards room.  Warm colors lined the walls; cherry wood accents and gold wallpaper.  A full bar filled one corner, and a dart board graced the wall next to a portrait of steeplechasers.

Wigginton pulled two bottles of beer from a cooler and opened them.   "You can smoke if you like, I'm not fussy."  He handed John a bottle.

"Cheers. That's alright, I don't smoke." John watched Wigginton tip back his head and pour half the bottle down his throat.  John followed suit. The stout sluiced away the  bitter memory of the cab ride with Sherlock.  Smacking his lips appreciatively he spun the bottle in his hand looking for the make.

"Ooo that's very good.” A simple white sticker with the label W14 adhered to the side.

"My brother brews his own. He makes recipe 14 just for me.  This is my early Christmas present.  I'm off to Kandahar tomorrow on Thursday.

"Right." John cleared his throat. "I wanted to talk to you about just that ..."

The buzzer sounded for the front door.

"Dinner!" Wigginton said brightly.  “Stay here, and rack the table, I need to polish my game.  The guys at the Kandahar camp are real sharks.”

Wigginton left and John stood for a moment puzzled, before shaking his head and searching the room for a rack.  By the time the Wigginton returned with the plastic bag full of paper cartons, John had racked the balls and stood leaning on a pool que.

“Afghanistan has changed a lot if they play pool now.”

Wigginton smirked at the sight of a middle aged man in Armani suit pants, with his sleeves rolled up and his tie loosened, trying to look like a pool hall tough.

“Well, they don’t.   But we have a table at the hospital.  It breaks the monotony between ied blasts.”  Wigginton stabbed some chopsticks into a carton of orange chicken and handed the box to John.  “You’re my guest, you break.”

John had been an above average pool player as a young man.  He imagined it would all come back to him, but as he shot the cue ball into the rack, the tight scar tissue on his shoulder pulled his elbow out, and the cue ball missed the rack completely. 

“Damn.” John muttered.  He rubbed his hand over his scar, trying to loosen it up.

“Been a while, has it?”  Wigginton collected the cue ball and splathering his long legs like a giraffe at a watering hole, so he could get low enough to line up his shot, drove the cue ball so hard into the rack it made a sound like a gun shot.  Balls skittered satisfyingly around the table, two even finding a pocket.

“Just a little bit rusty.”  John finished his beer and pulled two more out of the cooler.

"That’s right.  Golf is probably more your game, right?”

“Or Polo?  Is that what you mean?” John bristled at the implication that he was some Lord of the Manor.  “Maybe Fox Hunting?”

Wigginton turned quizzically at the angry tone.  “I apologize, Dr. Watson.  I only just remembered who you are.”

“Who I am?”

"Dr. John Watson. Husband to Mary Moffat and son in law to the biggest charitable donor my branch office has ever known.  I just assumed you must go out with your father in law to play golf.”

“You assumed wrong.  We like to turn a servant loose and then hunt him down.”

Wigginton snorted and walked around the table for his next shot.  “No harm meant, John.”

John had to laugh at himself.  “That’s alright.” John handed Wigginton another beer.

“Wait.  My father in law gives you money?”

“Tons.  How do you think we got the billiard table into Kandahar?  Your father in law has been incredibly generous.”

John shrugged.  Maybe the interfering old bastard had a heart of gold after all. John finished his beer and pulled out two more. 

“He did have more stipulations on the money  than any other donor I have worked with.”  Wigginton winked at John as he took the proffered beer. “Can’t say I liked him much.  Pushy prat. Damn.” He swore as he missed his shot.

“Welcome to my world.”  It felt good to speak his mind to a sympathetic ear.  “He must be getting something out of it, this donation.  He always has some scheme in mind.”   John munched on an egg roll and admired Wigginton’s dancer’s grace as he moved from shot to shot.  John thought that Wigginton must be close to his own age, yet moved with a young man’s careless fluidity. 

                ‘I had that once,’ John thought. ‘Devil may care.’ He was reminded suddenly of the rabid dog on the moors.  While everyone else was spraying lead in useless panic, he had taken easy aim and fired once.  That had felt good, the way Sherlock looked at him from under his hooded brow, like he was seeing him for the first time.  That slight tip of the head, which meant John had done exceedingly well.

“What are you smiling about, Doctor?”  John looked up to see Wigginton watching him.  So much like Sherlock, tall, curly hair and blue eyes, only light where Sherlock was dark.

John shook his head, “Just thinking about an old friend of mine.  Is it my shot?  Want to make it interesting?  Say twenty quid a game?”

“Make it forty.” Wigginton arched one eyebrow in challenge.

“Fifty” John said evenly.

John lost the first game.  It was a rout.  And the second game as well, but only by two balls.  By the end of the third game, the Chinese food was gone, and John had lost track of how many beers he had drunk, but he was beating Wigginton by three balls.

After the last shot, John walked over to Wigginton and blocked his path. 

“I want to sign up.”  

“Yes.”  Wigginton’s lips twisted into a wistful smile. “Of course you do.  Why else would you be here?”

“Good.”  John nodded. “Where do I sign?”

“Umm John.”  Old John stepped from behind the cinderblock wall at the sound in Wigginton’s voice. 

“Come on Wigginton, let’s do this.”

“It’s dangerous, John.   And you have a wife and child, now.” 

 “What’s the problem, Wigg?”

Wigginton’s shoulders sagged.  “I can’t take you, John, your father –in-law…”

John cracked the pool cue over his knee before he realized what he was doing.  He looked at the two pieces and then threw them on the table.

“What…?  What has Moffat done?  Ohhhh…. The donations.” 

Wigginton nodded.   “Understand .  It is a huge amount of money.  It helped us set up a new clinic in a safer neighborhood, and it bought us all new equipment.  And all he wanted was one thing in return.”

“To turn me down?”

Wigginton crossed his arms.  “Honestly, I didn’t’ think twice.  You certainly didn’t seem interested in joining, so what was the harm?”

“Fuck!”  John was trapped, thwarted at every turn.  First Sherlock and then Moffat.  “God damnit, Wigginton!”

“Look.  He just wants to keep you safe.  Stay here and work with me out of the London office.  With your connections we would never run out of money.”

“Fuck my connections, and fuck you!”  Frustration welled up in his chest, displacing his air.  He had to get out.  He staggered out of the study and wheeled down the hall to the front door.  The alcohol caught up to him and he had to steady himself against the walls.

“Hold on, John!”  Wigginton hurried after him.  
The front door loomed in front of him.  He had to struggle with the deadbolt to get out.

The December night was so cold that breathing felt like swallowing razor blades.  John hissed as the icy air filled his lungs.

“Come back inside, please, John.” 

He felt Wigginton’s hand land on his left shoulder, trying to stop him.  John wheeled , swinging an overhand punch at his pleading host.  Wigginton’s reach saved his face. The blow landed on his chest. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry John,   come in and I will let you punch me all you want.”

“Sod off! You posh son-of-a –bitch” John’s foot slipped on the icy top step and he crashed down the remaining six steps to the side walk.

“Oh, shit, John!”  Wigginton was by his side, kneeling on the frozen concrete.

“I said piss off!”  John was bleeding profusely from a tear in his brow.

“I’d better call an ambulance.”  Wigginton pulled his cell phone out of his pocket.

“I will kill you if you do.”  John grabbed Wigginton’s sleeve. “I’m a good shot and I’ve killed before.”

Wigginton sat back on his heels.  “Okay.  At least come in.  I can’t have you dying  on my front porch.”  He helped John to his feet.

“Don’t you bloody carry me.”  John warned.

Nodding, Wigginton put John’s arm over his shoulder and helped him to his feet.   As they hobbled up the treacherous stairs Wigginton’s arm wrapped around John’s waist to hold him up.

“People will talk.”  John muttered under his breath.

“That’s all they do.” Said Wigginton.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thinking ahead to season 3 and the obvious *shudders* wedding, caused me to imagine a Sherlock built to Moffat's specification. That would mean, No Gay Subtext. No Gay Anything. With John married off to Mary, who will "work with" Sherlock now? The logical answer is the forensics specialist who has always been mad for him and willing to do anything he asks. And she has better lab equipment than he does. Don't worry. Moffat's Sherlock is Asexual. Married only to his work. You wont have to sit through any awkward Molly/Sherlock.
> 
> How would John handle being replaced? What would that do to the dynamics of his marriage? When the longed for miracle finally happens, and Sherlock comes back, why is it that John finds he isn't happy? Instead of joy, there is only disappointment and niggling resentment as John watches Sherlock and Molly run the streets while he tends to his marriage and family.
> 
> I'm taking this bit by bit and letting it lead me where it will. It is more an exercise than story.

  John H. Watson woke the next morning with a head that felt as if it had been whacked with an axe handle.  He kept his eyes screwed shut against the painful half-light and let his other senses feed him information.  At least he wasn't on a jail house floor this time.  It felt more like an  800 quid mattress underneath him, and a down comforter encasing him from above.

                Birds.

                He could hear actual bird song.  So he wasn't in his highrise in Moffat Place.  A car drove by. He was in a residential neighborhood.

                There was a soft scrape as a tray was set on a table to his right, and then a gentle hand, back of hand actually, resting on his forehead. Another hand encircled his wrist and a finger settled over his pulse point.

                "Taking my vitals?" he asked, his voice sounding faint and scratchy like an old movie.

                "Force of habit." The voice had a gentle smile in it. "I brought aspirin. You probably should take it. The lump on your forehead is still pretty swollen."

                John peeled open one eye and looked up at a blurry impossibly tall Wigginton stooping over him with a concerned look.

                "Can you see? That was a hard knock you took."

                "Yeah." John blinked to clear the sleep from his eyes. "Yeah, still two of you." He joked, and struggled to sit up. He was afraid his memories of the previous night might prove to be mortifying. He should at least be in a cab before they all came flooding back in.  It seemed for the moment that Old John was safely walled away again.

                "Here" Wigginton handed him a glass and two asperin.  John took his meds like a good boy and then threw the comforter off as he swung his legs off the bed. He stopped for a second, looking down at his exposed skin. Only his underpants remained.

                "You undressed me." he said it matter-of-factly.

                "There was a lot of blood. You may have trouble getting the stains out."

                "Mmmmhmph" John was uncertain what to do next.

                "Oh. I've got something you can wear." Wigginton straightened up to his 6'3" height.

                "Oh, I don't think you do mate."

                "No. No. My ex left some of his clothes here when he moved out. There are some jeans..." he started to paw thru his closet, "...and a shirt... Oh, and a suit jacket." he turned, pleased with himself. John coughed into his hand. He felt the odd sensation of receiving someone else’s mail.  Wiggington must still have feelings for his ex and they were transferring to John.

                "So, this ex...you gave him the boot?" John asked, wriggling into Levi's that did indeed fit.

                Wigginton turned and closed the closet door, keeping his expression hidden from John.

"He couldn't put up with the extended separations. I was away too much.  No one's fault really." He turned back around as John was tucking in the shirt, a soft, broken in white collar shirt.

                "You want some toast? I made tea and coffee. Just a little something to settle your stomach."

                John shrugged into the suit jacket. It was cut for a younger man, so it was tight through the shoulders, but he could leave it unbuttoned.

                "Ah, well, I should get home."

                "Come on. Please. I owe you an explanation."

                "I think I am the one that owes you. I can't remember much, but what I do...isn't pretty."

                Wig smiled. "We can hash it out then. I really should have mentioned your father-in-..."

                "Just call him Moffat. Everyone does."

                "...Moffat's contract earlier. But I was hoping I could get you to come to work here in London as a fundraiser and administrator. He couldn't object to that."

                "I object to that." John realized that Wigginton was herding him slowly into the kitchen. John also realized he didn't know where his shoes were. It looked like he might be having a cup of tea after all.

                "Why? You want to work in Doctors Without Borders. So work here. Stay with your family."

                John went silent. He accepted his cup of tea, hot with no sugar and none offerred. He gingerly bit a corner of toast to see what that would do to his stomach.  He looked around for his shoes, and saw them by the front door, near his camel coat.

                "Well, Thanks for the tea and the clothes. I will get them back to you. Obviously I will wash them first."  John stood. Wigginton's chair scraped as he leapt to his feet.

                "Wait."

                Wigginton moved to block his path, but a hard look from John made him step back.

                "Look, Watson." Wigginton spoke quickly as he walked backwards in front of John, his hands up, even with John's chest but not touching.   "As a doctor I have to ask...Why are you trying to kill yourself?"

                John stopped. His stocking feet curled in the woof of the carpet, as though gripping against a gale. He swallowed and tried to look gruff.

                "What do you mean? Why would you say that?"

                Wigginton dropped his hands to his side.

                "Because, Watson, you escaped Afghanistan more dead than alive. And now you want to go back."

                John wished most desperately for a cane at that moment. He ran his tongue in front of his teeth and looked away from the pale blue gaze.

                "Ahem. And how do you know that?" He cocked his head.

                "I read your blog."

                "Impossible.  I haven't written in years."

                "Your old blog, "Study In Pink"? Every gay man in London opened up that post."

                John felt his throat constrict. He swallowed hard and blew out his breath.  Sagging, he looked for a seat, and made it to an arm chair.

                "I don't like to talk about that."

                "Okay. Sure, sure." Wigginton pulled a chair over from the table. "But He's the reason, isn't he." Wigginton sat close to John, but still far enough away that he didn't feel threatened.

                "He?"

                " You know what I'm talking about John. People volunteer for two reasons, either they want to save the world, or they want to do something dangerous so Death can take a shot at them. "

                Wigginton very slowly moved his hand in and rested it on John's knee. 

                "You show up here on a Tuesday night in a state, wanting to ship off right away. You’ve  got everything in the world to live for and you want to throw it all away."

                The hand on John's knee began to squeeze. It gave John something to focus on, besides Wigginton's words.  He was calculating how much longer he would tolerate it before shoving  the man’s hand off.  The grip of Wigginton’s long strong fingers also enabled John to ignore the wailing going on behind the cinderblock wall in his head.   His knees spread wider by a barely perceptible 3 centimeters. Wigginton's grip loosened;  he sat back and continued.

                "Look. We all knew. We could see it. You guys were burning too bright to fool anyone."

                John laughed, but it sounded staged. "What are you talking about, Wigginton?"

                "Sherlock.  You and Sherlock.  Running around London like two Peter Pans after Captain Hook. It was like having a couple of gay superheroes.  Bloody marvelous!"  Wigginton stopped and looked at John, closely, carefully.

                "I won't ask what happened. I suspect that's an open wound still.  But, all that stuff the papers said-  None of US believed it."  Wiggington shot to his feet.  He hung a hand in his shirt collar and tugged on it.

                "That day. There wasn't a dry eye in any gay bar in London.  Losing Diana was sad, right, but she was nothing compared too ...well.  Anyway.  He came back…right?  And we all thought…well…but then you were already married…but still…how could you not get BACK together?   Oh fuck.  Sorry.   God, I think I need a drink." Wigginton back pedaled out of the room.

                John felt like a marble statue, just like he had the day before, in front of Barts, holding the cab for Sherlock.

                "Jesus!" John was on his feet. His shoes were 10 feet away. He had to move. Something was coming to swallow him. That darkness, cold and sucking, called back by Wigginton's trip down memory lane, it was coming for him, rushing.  John's heart was jack rabbit fast in his chest.

                John scooped up his shoes and ran for the door.

                On the pavement outside, his feet were immediately on fire from the cold.  He dropped his shoes and stepped into them.  Behind him he heard the door open and close.  He didn't want to, but he turned to the man standing like a pirate captain on the deck of his front stoop.  In one hand he had a glass, in the other John's 1200 quid camel coat.

                John deflated.  Feeling like a child, he walked slowly back up the steps. Wigginton didn't hold the coat out, he just sipped his drink and made John take every step up.

                John watched him for any hint of sympathy. Wigginton just watched the passing cars.

                John reached past the coat and delicately plucked the glass from Wigginton's hand.

                "Where's yours?" John asked sipping the scotch and raising his eyebrows in query.

Wigginton's lips twisted into a lopsided grin.

                "Come on then." Wiggington turned and swung the door open.  "If you're going to Afghanistan, I need you to sign some forms."

 

                "I thought you weren't going to risk the Moffat money."

                John hurried after Wiggington as he threaded his way deeper into the old house.

                "I'm not risking it. You're taking a job in London as the branch administrator."

                John stopped.   Wiggington followed the old servant's corridor and disappeared around a corner.  John sprinted a little to catch up.

                "I meant what I said!" he yelled, now reduced to checking room to room to find his new, what, friend?.  "I'm not interested in a desk job here."

                Wigginton popped his head out of a doorway at the end of the hall. "I'm not giving you a desk job. You're the new procurement officer for the Kandahar hospital.  And while your work will be done here, in London, you have to fly to Afghanistan to check inventory and see what needs to be replaced. "

                John stopped arms akimbo in the door frame and watched as Wigginton spun in his desk chair grinning at John as he laid out scheme.

                "What about Moffat?"

                "If he asks, I will say you operate out of this office. It’s not a lie. Sign on the X's."  He handed John a clipboard with wavers and acknowledgment of information papers.  John took the clipboard and started signing without bothering to read.

                "I'm going down tomorrow. Some doctors want to be spelled for Christmas. Come down with me.  If you're lucky our plane will get shot down and Sherlock can weep over your grave this time."

                John flung the pen at Wigginton's head.

                "Fuck you!  And I'm not gay!"

Wigginton ducked and laughed.  "I never said you were mate. And for your information the last time a guy told me he wasn't gay was just before he stuck my cock in his mouth."

                John felt his cheeks burn, but he marveled at how easy this all felt, slinging curses and speaking frankly. It felt like the Army,  but the army before anyone died under his hands  screaming from a gut shot or whimpered and passed quietly from a severed femoral  artery.  Before he'd been bleeding on the sand himself and trying to memorize what a blue sky looked like before it was too late.

                "Hey Wig-" he opened his mouth wide and pointed his index finger at his tongue, "-cock free zone, mate."

                Wigginton stood up. "You keep telling yourself that, Watson." he patted John's shoulder.

 "Come on, we need to pack and fetch your passport."


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thinking ahead to season 3 and the obvious *shudders* wedding, caused me to imagine a Sherlock built to Moffat's specification. That would mean, No Gay Subtext. No Gay Anything. With John married off to Mary, who will "work with" Sherlock now? The logical answer is the forensics specialist who has always been mad for him and willing to do anything he asks. And she has better lab equipment than he does. Don't worry. Moffat's Sherlock is Asexual. Married only to his work. You wont have to sit through any awkward Molly/Sherlock.
> 
> How would John handle being replaced? What would that do to the dynamics of his marriage? When the longed for miracle finally happens, and Sherlock comes back, why is it that John finds he isn't happy? Instead of joy, there is only disappointment and niggling resentment as John watches Sherlock and Molly run the streets while he tends to his marriage and family.
> 
> I'm taking this bit by bit and letting it lead me where it will. It is more an exercise than story.

 "He wanted to come." Molly observed as she snapped pictures of a broken ivy vine hanging off a garden wall.

                 "Get a shot of this partial foot print." Sherlock's laser gaze swept the grounds of the garden flat across the ally from the crime scene.  A half second later Molly's comment breached his concentration. "Who?" he asked as simultaneously Molly supplied the answer,

                 "John."

                 It was something he adored about Molly, she was so selfless in her mind that when she worked beside him they not only finished each other’s sentences but predicted them as well.

                 "Mmmm, well..." three excuses popped up in his mind to say to her, but an unfortunate side effect of working with someone who is so in tune with you is you can't pull off lying to them.

                "Why?" She asked, and without being told she stuck a pink post it to a trestle next to the opposite fence, where a very faint blood smear ended in a partial finger print.  She liked to use pink because it stood out like a beacon.  In a few minutes they would point forensics this way and that print would be recovered.

                 Sherlock hummed and scraped a bit of the dried blood into a plastic bag for their own analysis. Police lab was so slow in these matters.

                 "I don't know." he finally answered.  "His company unsettles me." he offered as a truth and hoped she would let it lie.

                 "That much is obvious." that was Molly's rather more civil way of saying 'Clearly'. "It didn't ‘unsettle’ you before."

                 Sherlock paused at the garden gate that opened onto a muddy patch of lawn and the next street over and aggressively ignored Molly’s statement.   He looked at a scrape of bark on the trunk of a Yew tree that shaded that corner of the yard.  He peered over the dividing wall between this garden cottage and the small building of apartments next door.  He turned on his heel.

                 "Inform Anderson of the print, and tell Lestrade to question the occupants of those flats."  he nodded at the apartment  next door.  "They will be missing some clothes. And the murderer’s bloody clothes will be in a garbage bin, probably in the laundry room."  Sherlock opened the gate to the muddy front yard and stepped through, closing it behind him. He turned back to her.

                Molly took note of all he said, nodding.

                 "I suspect that Lestrade already knows who the killer is,  but he wants  our verification.  Tell him it was the daughter.  She is probably home right now.  If he hurries he can arrest her before she decides to leave town."  Sherlock turned and walked.

                 Molly was to be the magician on this one.  She had no flair for it, but Sherlock rarely put on the peacock's display of old.  There was no one to preen for any more.

                 "He still cares for you." she called after the retreating form.

                Sherlock stiffened.  "Molly,"  he warned in a deepening voice that ended with the stillness of a stormy sky  just before the heavens open.

                 "He does, Sherlock."

                 Sherlock closed his eyes and took a slow deep breath.  Molly suddenly wished she had left it alone.  He opened his eyes and walked back to the gate.

                 "It's not enough." His voice became softer with each step.  "His ‘care’.  When He is not here, I have my work, our partnership, Anna who needs me, Mrs. Hudson, Mycroft."  His hands rose, palms up, as if catching falling pennies from heaven. "I'm a rich man when he's not here.   But when I see him. Poof!" he raised his arms to indicate a mushroom cloud, "then I have nothing!  Only my dignity.  That is all I have left, and I have to cling with both hands to keep it."  Sherlock leaned heavily on the gate..

                "I'm sorry." Molly blurted.

                 "I know it looks like arrogance. I know I look like a "posh git" as John would say.  But if I lose that, my dignity, then I am forever lost."

                Molly nodded. "Of course." She bit her bottom lip, hesitant to continue.  "Maybe you should tell him how you feel?"

                 "Were you not listening?”  He was shouting by now.  “ That is the one thing I can NOT do, Molly!"  the sight of Molly's face blanching from his anger made him stop.

                 "Please tell Lestrade." he turned and walked away.

 

 

                The trip to Kandahar was brutally uncomfortable, but, thanks to Wigginton's RAF connections, not terribly long. They flew on cargo planes. That meant hard seats, and not much else. Certainly no heat that John could discern. They wore their cold weather gear for 26 hours straight, apart from a landing in Saudi Arabia when they switched planes and then it was hellishly hot for an hour until they were back in the air again.

                 John was hard pressed to understand his emotions as he physically moved further and further away from all he called home.

                 First he had to lie to his wife, and that still made him feel like a swine. He told her Harry had a bad relapse and was in a rehab facility in East Anglia, and was so despondent that he felt he must stay by her side for Christmas.  Mary had been uncharacteristically upset by this. John often missed family occasions due to work.  Mary had taken these in stride.  But now she was offering to come with him as he sat with his sister.

                "No, dear, it’s a nice thought and I appreciate it, but she will be in no state to see anyone but me."

                "So you will come up after Christmas?"

                 "Oh I think not. I will likely pop in to work and check up on things. Don't worry about me dear. You and Roger have a good time."

                 "You will be at the New Year’s party, right?"

                "I think so." he was beginning to feel wretched by now. New John was uncomfortable with subterfuge. But Old John was adept at it, having created elaborate fictions on the spot with Sherlock many times, and Old John was itching to pick up his duffle and go. So it was Old John who piped up:

                "Oh, damn, I have a conference in Germany. Peachy was scheduled to go, but his wife is having complications with her pregnancy and he asked me if I could take his place.  I'm afraid I'll have to miss it."

                 "John, No."

                 "It comes with the job dear.  But you know what?   I will book us a cruise for the Mediterranean.  We will go in February.  Just us.  How does that sound?"

                 "Lovely. It sounds lovely." her voice was strangely flat. "John?"

                 "Yes dear?"

                 "Are you with Sherlock?"

                "What?" It was Old John's turn to be knocked off stride. His chest clenched like a fist.

 "Why would you ask me that?" his voice was harsh, but he couldn't control it.

                 "He called, here.  Said he didn't have your cell number, so he looked up the land line here."

 Old John began to hyperventilate. Was there finally a case? Something Sherlock needed him for?

                 "What did he want?"

                 "He said he just wanted to say Merry Christmas, and he had lost your number.  I gave him your new cell number."

                John huffed.  The one time the self-centered bastard called and it’s just to wish his family Seasons Greetings.  Not to ask him back.  Not to meet for drinks.  Hot tears pricked the corners of his eyes. He was so glad he was going on this trip. If he got enough Afghan sand in his eyes, he might be less of a woman about all this. Emotions had no place in a warzone.

                 "No. I'm not with him. And he didn't call. I've got to go, my phone is dying."  He blew her a kiss over the phone line and then shut his phone off and tucked it away in his duffle.

                 That is where it had stayed for the last day and a half.   Wigginton had brought a flask, and they talked shop and swapped stories of medical emergencies in the field and napped and stared out the window.  As the terrain below became rugged and dry, John felt himself changing to match it. He was hollow, dry, emotionless, and finally feeling at peace.

                 "Wig?" he poked Wigginton with his elbow and handed him back his flask.

                 "Hmmmm?"

                 "Why are you here?"

                 Wigginton gave John a baleful look.

                 "To spell a couple of doctors for Christmas. I thought I'd said."

                 "No.  Really.  Why are you doing this whole thing?" John waved an arm in a drunken arc to indicate the universe at large.

                 "Oh, that. You mean am I trying to play "you're it" with death?"

                John nodded.

                 "No. I'm here to save the world. Not everyone has a death wish Watson."

                 John shook his head.   "I don't believe it. Why this part of the world?  Gay people get thrown in prison here."

                 "Killed." Wigginton corrected.

                 “Exactly.  We have needy people back home."

                 "Oh. That. Yeah well Afghani men give the best head." Wigginton yawned and tried to go back to sleep.

                 "You're hiding something." John said.

                 "There you go deducing.  Must be all that time you spent sleuthing with..."

                 "Shut up about him!" John grumbled.

                "Why don't you follow your own advice?" Wigginton turned onto his hip and rolled his shoulder away from John.  John blinked, stinging from the rebuke, until he realized the implication.

                 "You have someone here!  Of course you do."

                Wigginton groaned.  "Why would I spend most of my time in London if I had someone here?"

                 John couldn't see an answer to that. He sat up and looked at the passing landscape. The smear of greys and blues swept his mind clear.  In a few hours nothing would matter except what was directly in front of him.  Sherlock.  Mary, even Kenneth would be erased from his thoughts, at least for a few weeks.  He hoped when he returned to London that he would be a different man.

                 John felt a puff of wind on his ear, he turned and was looking straight into Wigginton's twinkling blue eyes.

                 "You look like you could use a hand job."

                 "Fucking git!" John laughed.

                 "Hey, just trying to help out my friend."

                 John warmed to the idea that he had a friend. One not somehow connected to Sherlock or Moffat.

                 "Thanks anyway."

                 The plane suddenly banked 45 degrees.

                 "That's the approach.”  Wigginton sat up.  “Next stop Hell."

 

                 Since Anna had joined the fray at Baker Street, the holidays has become cheerier to Sherlock.  He loved to see Anna's otherwise serious expression flip like a switch to smiles and even laughter.  Molly was over the moon to be sharing family traditions with someone besides her cat and the skull on the mantel piece.   Mrs. Hudson was up and down the stairs half a dozen times hauling up baked goods and presents.

                Sherlock could even be coaxed into playing Christmas songs on the violin.

                Only about once every hour would the thought "John would have loved this." cross his mind followed swiftly by a flush of regret for every time he had squashed John's efforts to have some type of celebration in the flat. What an absolute prat he had been.  Then Sherlock would look up to see Anna, her face frozen and dark, reading his expression, and he would smile and tell her how proud he was of her latest report card and make a joke and soon she was secure again, and John was tucked back into that small room in Sherlock’s mind.

                 He was almost certain that John was involved in something this Christmas;  something he was hiding from Mary. The sound of her voice when he called the Moffat's ancestral home tuned him into the crack in the universe that was John Watson breaking routine.  Sherlock had even texted John's new cell, but John had not returned his message.  He thought about, and then dismissed, the idea of calling the Moffats again.  If John was hiding something from Mary, he didn't need Sherlock blowing his cover.

                 "Sherlock? Will you carve?"

                 He turned from the window, to see his family gathered around the table. Well, his family but for one.  He took a deep breath and smiled.

                 "I would be honored."

 


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thinking ahead to season 3 and the obvious *shudders* wedding, caused me to imagine a Sherlock built to Moffat's specification. That would mean, No Gay Subtext. No Gay Anything. With John married off to Mary, who will "work with" Sherlock now? The logical answer is the forensics specialist who has always been mad for him and willing to do anything he asks. And she has better lab equipment than he does. Don't worry. Moffat's Sherlock is Asexual. Married only to his work. You wont have to sit through any awkward Molly/Sherlock.
> 
> How would John handle being replaced? What would that do to the dynamics of his marriage? When the longed for miracle finally happens, and Sherlock comes back, why is it that John finds he isn't happy? Instead of joy, there is only disappointment and niggling resentment as John watches Sherlock and Molly run the streets while he tends to his marriage and family.
> 
> I'm taking this bit by bit and letting it lead me where it will. It is more an exercise than story.

   "Nothing has changed."

                John stood on the tarmac next to his duffle and a bleary squinting Wigginton.  They had landed on an airstrip inside a military base.  At first John thought they were under attack, until he remembered that the urgent movements of the soldiers around him was actually the result of unceasing tension.

                "This way!" the pilot walked past them, to a waiting jeep and they picked up their kit and followed,  John in a shuffling jog walk, and Wigginton with just a shuffle.

                "What's the chances of us catching a ride into town?"  Wigginton asked the driver.

                "You're better off going in with a patrol. One should be leaving after lunch,"  the driver answered.  They tossed in their gear and John climbed up front, unconsciously riding shotgun.  He was thrumming with adrenaline and half remembered events.  He turned back to look at a somber hung over Wigginton.

                "Don't smile John, remember, "War zone"."

 

                Christmas came and went without a call from John.  Without a text.  Without an answer or word of any kind.

                Mary was beyond concerned.  In all their years together she had not passed more than 48 hours without speaking to her husband in person or by phone.  Even in times when he worked the night shift, or stayed in town for a conference, he would make certain to call Roger, and to give her a goodnight chat before bed.  He wasn’t answering her text messages.  He didn’t return her calls.  Harry must be worse than he let on.  

                “I’m sure he left his phone charger at home, Mary.” Her brother explained helpfully.  “He isn’t responding because he isn’t getting your messages.”

                “I’m sure you’re right.”  She smiled and tried not to let her fears ruin her holiday.

 

 

                "Why are we stopping here?" John leaned forward to hear what Wigginton was telling the marine driving the truck.  Wigginton turned and smiled.

                "It’s okay John, you stay with the patrol and go on to the hospital.  I have some stuff to do first."

Wigginton opened the door as the truck came to a halt.

                "How will you get there?" John asked.

                "I will find a way. Off you go....."

                John scrambled out of the truck after him, turning to grab his duffle.

                "What are you doing? John. Get back in..."

                John smacked the side of the truck with his palm and the truck took off.

                "I'm going with you. What are we doing here anyway?"

                Wigginton shook his head, then shrugged.   "I have to visit an old friend. Let's get to the next street, then take a cab."

                "A cab?" John looked about doubtfully.

                Afghanistan was much like he remembered it, people of the 21st century living in some crazy Wild West fashion.  Nothing made sense.  Nothing was safe.  Some people were trying to go on about their life in a more or less modern way, while others were existing on some clannish cave man level. Around them was a city trying to exist and trying to grow, while half its inhabitants were employed in its' destruction.  There were buildings.  Shops.  Mud walls.  Mud houses.  People buying and selling. People with guns.  Generators growled constantly, trying to provide constant power in the hit or miss power grid.

                Everywhere John looked were people staring at them, all with suspicion and various levels of hostility.   One or two looked murderous, and hands twitched to hidden fire arms.  John's hands lightly brushed against the piece holstered under his arm.

                "We should be wearing vests." John hissed.

                Wigginton shrugged. "We have some at the hospital, if you want to bother.  I can assure you that everyone in the city believes us to be wearing Kevlar.  So if we are to be shot, it will be in the head or the balls. Take your pick.  And we are actually more likely to be blown up or kidnapped and tortured, so we might as well be comfortable until they catch us.”

                "Oh." John frowned.

                "Come on John, I thought you were here to die heroically.  Buck up."

                "I'm not actually..." John started to explain the difference between proving himself to himself by doing something big and dangerous versus deliberately killing himself, when Wigginton saw a gypsy cab and stepped in front of it, waving his arms and shouting one word over and over.

                "Airport!  Airport!"

                The cab tried to steer around him, but Wigginton side stepped in front of it again.  The car stopped.  John squinted, trying to determine what the original make of automobile had been. Some kind of economy sedan, Toyota or Ford or Nissan was his guess.  It was only a patchwork of body parts now. Wigginton opened the back door and chucked his bag in, talking a mile a minute in Pashtun.   John once knew a bit of the language, but now could only understand every tenth word.  Two of those words were "money" and "airport".  Wigginton waved impatiently for John to come over.

                "Get in!"

                John climbed in back, pulling his duffle in. Wigginton, with his crazy long legs climbed in front, and never stopped talking, pressing 20 dollar bills in the drivers hand and begging him in words and gesture.  Finally the driver drove on, grumbling.  John felt less vulnerable off the streets, but didn't trust their driver not to deliver them straight to the Taliban. He loosened his gun in its holster and tried to slow his breathing to something approaching normal.

                Wigginton spoke quickly to the driver, who grunted and shook his head "no".  Wigginton pleaded, and pulled another 20 dollar bill from his pocket.  John wondered where Wigginton had picked up so much US currency. The cab driver sighed dramatically and turned the cab left at the next cross street.  John gave up trying to keep track of where they were, the sun was overhead, so he couldn’t tell East from West, and the rattling cab tore down dusty rutted roads no bigger than alleys.  Finally they stopped outside a mud walled court yard.  Wigginton spoke to the cabby who reluctantly nodded. Wigginton turned and smiled at John.

                "Stay here and don't let him leave. I will be just five minutes."

                "Uhm..."  John had a million questions. 

                Wigginton slung the door open and was gone into the courtyard in three long strides.

                "Yeah, right, okay." John muttered, then coughed as the driver fired up a noxious hand rolled cigarette.  John tried to roll down the window, but there was no handle, so he opened the door and swung around to sit with his legs touching the ground.

                A movement caught his eye.  From over the top of the mud wall, a small face peered at him.  A girl he imagined, from her scarf, but a child for sure, maybe six years old.  John smiled at her, but then wondered if that was against local custom.  So he looked at his new boots instead, so few miles on them that his feet hadn't broken them in yet.  He was really too old to be doing such damage to his feet.  He was regretting not just wearing trainers.

                A voice like a bird chirping sounded close by.  John looked up to see the little girl cloaked in black standing in the court yard doorway.  She was speaking to him. He smiled and said "Hi", then waved to get his message across.  She smiled back, her two front teeth missing.  Yes, definitely six years old then.

                A man's voice gruffly called out, and the little girl dashed back inside the courtyard.  A moment later Wigginton came swinging out through the archway like it was his own garden path.  As the long legged Brit climbed into the cab, John sputtered a question.

                "Alright Lawrence of Arabia, what are we doing here?"

                Wigginton held up a finger for quiet.  "Later John.  Now Airport!"  Wigginton  spoke to the driver.

                "Why airport?" John asked as the driver accelerated.

                "Any cab will take you to the airport, even if they consider you the enemy,  at least they are getting you out of their country." Wig turned to smile at him. "Once you're on your way, then you negotiate a stop."

                The car suddenly came to a stop. Wigginton turned to the driver. "No. No stop.  Go. "

                The driver ignored him.  He flung his door open and threw himself out on the ground, then scuttled like a lizard for cover.  Wigginton and John looked out the windshield.  Three men, armed with automatic weapons were haloed by sun and smudged windshield in front of them.

                Wigginton gulped. "Shit."

                John was reaching for his gun when they opened fire. The windshield exploded and Wigginton twitched and gasped as he was hit.  John was about to return fire when Wigginton stepped on the accelerator, grabbed the steering wheel  with his left hand, and from the passenger side, drove straight into the gunmen.

                The three men scattered and the car shot through and down the narrow street.  John kneeled on his duffle and reached across the front seat to grab the steering wheel from Wigginton.  At the next cross street John swung the car to the right. They were half a mile down the street when Wigginton’s foot slipped off the gas pedal.  He slumped across the front seat gasping for air like an asthmatic.

                The car came to a rolling stop.  John scrambled out the back door and ran around to the front. Opening the passenger side front door,  he crawled in on top of Wigginton searching him for injury.

                "Wig! Wig! Where are you hit." John saw a bullet hole in his shirt, chest high, right side.  There was blood, but not enough.  A shot to the chest should have blood gushing out.  Wigginton struggled to speak but couldn't get enough air. His shirt rose and fell with each gasp.

                "Lung?!" John shouted at Wigginton. The man’s eyes opened wide, impossibly blue, he nodded.

                "Okay. Okay. You'll be fine. You're a doctor, you know this Wig." As he spoke John searched frantically for something impermeable.   There.  In the floorboard was a plastic bag.  John folded it like a handkerchief and slid it under Wigginton’s shirt,  up against the weeping bullet hole.  The injured man's next gasp sucked the bag tight up against his skin.  Wigginton nodded at John.

"Good.  Sucking chest would.  Just keep pressure on it.  I'll drive."  John helped Wigginton back up into a slumping sitting position to clear the driver seat.  He was breathing easier now.

                "Base is close." Wigginton forced the words out.

                "Right."  John backed up and shut the door, then sprinted around to the other side.  Bullets scored the asphalt at his feet and screeched as they tore into the trunk of the car. John ducked and turned.  The gunmen were pounding up the road toward them. They were firing from a run thankfully or they might have hit him.

                John straightened up.  Standing like a duelist he aimed with muscle memory and serious purpose.  This was why he came.  Death was rushing up to take him, and John Hamish Watson was taking a stand.  He was all he was, no one else.  Whether Wigginton lived to see the sunset, whether he ever saw Sherlock again, all came down to this.

                In three measured shots, right to left, he fired.  The one on the left clutched his throat and fell to his knees, the other two jerked with impact but kept coming, spraying bullets desperately.  One tugged the side of John's shirt, its heat burning his skin. Another ruffled his hair.  John didn't blink.  He repeated fire, aim, fire. Right to left again.  A second man pitched forward, his race run.  A service revolver meant just six bullets.  Five were gone.  John felt a poker-hot crease mark his cheek.  He smiled.  Sherlock would love that.  John’s last bullet hit the man in his heart.  John didn't even wait to watch him fall.  His gun was empty.  He climbed into the cab. Wigginton looked at him with naked admiration.

                "Bloody hell, Watson."

                "Let's get you into surgery, shall we?"

 

 

                At the age of 44 Sherlock, for the first time ever, celebrated New Years by bundling up and going out with Molly and Anna to watch the fireworks.

                'I must be getting old and maudlin,' he told himself as his eyes teared up at the spectacle, the music, and the glow on Molly and Anna's faces.  But most important was the peep his phone made in the middle of it all.  He looked at the text,

                "Happy New Year - John"

                He didn't recognize the number it was coming from, and from years of habit, he forwarded it to Mycroft with a question mark.  Then he replied:

                "And to you, John, where ever you are."

He looked up to see Molly watching him. He realized suddenly that he had a satisfied smile on his face. He didn't try to pull a mug and hide it. He smiled at her. "John."

                She smiled back and gave him a hug.  He kissed her cheek.

                "Happy New Year, Molly."

 

 

               


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thinking ahead to season 3 and the obvious *shudders* wedding, caused me to imagine a Sherlock built to Moffat's specification. That would mean, No Gay Subtext. No Gay Anything. With John married off to Mary, who will "work with" Sherlock now? The logical answer is the forensics specialist who has always been mad for him and willing to do anything he asks. And she has better lab equipment than he does. Don't worry. Moffat's Sherlock is Asexual. Married only to his work. You wont have to sit through any awkward Molly/Sherlock.
> 
> How would John handle being replaced? What would that do to the dynamics of his marriage? When the longed for miracle finally happens, and Sherlock comes back, why is it that John finds he isn't happy? Instead of joy, there is only disappointment and niggling resentment as John watches Sherlock and Molly run the streets while he tends to his marriage and family.
> 
> I'm taking this bit by bit and letting it lead me where it will. It is more an exercise than story.

   The first day of the New Year,  Mary Moffat-Watson took a trip to the hospital her husband worked out of.   Peachy was there, working out of John's office,  just like John had said, but when Mary asked how the pregnancy was progressing he gave her a blank look.

                "Your wife's not pregnant, is she?" Mary asked.

                "No, Mrs. Watson. We are trying though." Peachy responded.

                "Good luck to you." She smiled warmly.  She didn't ask where John was.  If Peachy knew and she didn't it would be too humiliating.  Instead she called Harry. Harry answered in one ring.

                "Hello, Harry.  May I speak to John?"

                "John’s not here.  Wait, is he coming over?  He never said.  Are you coming?  Say yes.  It’s been ages since I’ve seen Roger.”

                "Oh, not today, I'm afraid." Then, thinking about Harry’s rehab, she asked,  "How was your Christmas?”

                “Uneventful."  she groaned. "I had to work. But some friends invited me over after and we had a late dinner."

                So Christmas in rehab was another lie.

                "That's nice.  We should get together soon.“  She tried to disconnect, but Harry interjected.

                "So John's gone missing?"

                "Oh, I think we have crossed communication. He'll turn up."

                "Sure. Have him give me a call when you find him."

                After she disconnected, Mary headed to Baker Street.

 

                Wigginton woke the next day at the base hospital.  A nurse told him his prognosis was good, provided he follow the surgeon’s orders which included antibiotics and bed rest .  No one had seen the small middle aged man who had brought him in. 

                "He probably caught the first plane home."  Wigginton speculated aloud to the orderly who came in to pick up his bed pan.

                When he woke up again, the setting sun was throwing orange rays of light through his plastic window.  One ray cast a bronze light over a dozing Watson, who was sleeping in a straight back chair, his head tipped back so far that all Wigginton could see was his Adam’s apple and his chin.

                "Watson!" Wigginton burgled.  He cleared his throat and tried to whistle.  John woke with the start of a soldier back in the field.  He winced as he snapped his head up.  His hands felt for his side arm even as his eyes swept the room for hidden dangers before coming to lite on Wigginton.

                "Hey! You're up. Good.” John stood up, massaging the back of his neck.  “You want to tell me now who that little girl was?"

                Wigginton smiled at the lack of niceties.

                "She is my partner’s kid. Kayla."

                "By “partner” you mean your ex-boyfriend?  The one whose clothes I wore?  Explain." John sat on Wigginton’s bed and waited.

                "Javid, that's his name, is not really my ex.  I just said that to explain his clothes.  He's in England illegally. I had to break half a dozen international immigration laws to get him out of here before he was killed."

                "Go on."  John nodded.

                Wigginton took a breath, not deep because he wasn't recovered enough, more of a sip.

                "The Taliban wanted him."

                "Because he was gay?"

                "Because he was from an influential family in Northern Afghanistan .  But they used the “gay” thing as an excuse.  He was a local doctor who volunteered  at the hospital.  There was talk of him running for mayor of Kandahar.  The Taliban didn't want a Northerner for mayor.   They targeted him.  We got him out just before the Taliban arrived at the hospital. There was no way to get his wife and girl out. They were being watched."

                John jutted his chin out.

                "Wife?"

                "Don't judge.  Javid’s marriage was arranged when he was seven."

                "Got it.  So do you bring his wife money?"

                "You are smart. Watson. Yes. She wouldn't survive otherwise. "

                John shook his head.

                "What?"

                "You really are saving the world."

                Wigginton went silent.

                "I'm tired Watson. Let me sleep."

                John got up and patted the pale blond on the shoulder.  He straightened up his covers, tucked him in and left.

 

                In the next week John became quite adept at manoeuvring his way from the base to the hospital.  The Doctors Without Borders field hospital had three armored trucks (thanks to all of Moffat’s money) so there was always one available.   Apart from checking on Wigginton's progress, John made trips to buy from the base commissary and to pick up things ordered for the hospital and flown in by RAF.

                As Procurement Officer of the Kandahar branch of D.W.B., John took one look at the place and broke out the check book.   He doubled their storage area and filled it with supplies; stuff from tongue depressors to stethoscopes.  He filled the medicine cabinets with drugs that weren't past their “use by” date.  But it was with the security of the hospital that he made the biggest changes.

                The small hospital was made of three old Korean War era Quonset huts connected to each other at the ends.  They stood isolated and vulnerable in a two acre lots..  How they had not been blown sky high already, he didn't know.

                Opening up the cash coffers he hired local men to build a twenty foot high fence around the lot. It wasn't meant to be impenetrable, but merely to shield the hospital from sniper fire.  If the Taliban couldn't see in, they couldn't shoot.  Then he got a contractor to build adobe barricades inside the fence line, so no car bomb could be driven straight up to the building and detonated.  Flood lights and motion detectors came next.  To keep the neighbours happy, John bought generators dedicated for the use of local shops and contracted lunch service from the cleanest restaurant he could find.  This last change was the most popular amongst patients and staff, as until then they had been eating imported British and American rations.  By the end of his second week there, the place was looking like a proper field hospital. 

                Wigginton was bed bound for a solid week before he was allowed a walk around the grounds.  It was two weeks before John could collect him and take him back to the field hospital with him.

                Driving back to D.W.B. hospital, Wiggington was somewhat uncomfortable, and he began to peel back the edges of John Watson just to distract himself from his own pain.

                "That is some duelling scar." Wiggington said. "The beard can't even cover it."

                John cast a glance in the side mirror to see himself.  He had put personal grooming at the bottom of his priority list, and couldn't be sure when he had last even combed his hair.  Two weeks of his fine sand coloured beard wouldn't cover newsprint, much less a groove the width of his forefinger gouged into the side of his face, just below his right cheekbone.  There had been nothing to do for it but clean it and keep it packed with anti-biotic cream.  It was covered over now with livid rust colored scabs and looked spectacularly gruesome.

                "Yeah." John smiled at him. "You're going to have a scar of your own to show Javid."

                Wigginton grunted.

                "Did you tell Mary you got shot?"

                John shook his head. "No. Actually she thinks I'm at a conference in Berlin."

                "What?" Wigginton sat up, his pain forgotten. "You didn't tell her you were coming here? Fuck, Watson.  I wouldn't want to be you when we get back."

                John sucked his tooth. "How could I tell her?  Moffat would have found out.  Let me use your phone when we get to the hospital. I'll tell her I lost my phone. I'll tell her I got invited to go skiing and I’m out of cell range."

                "I don't know Watson, That's not good. When she finds out..."

                "She's busy. She won't even notice I'm gone." John said darkly. To shut Wigginton up he reached under the seat and pulled out Wigginton's flask. "Here. Late Happy New Year."

                "Oh, Ta!" he took the flask and took a pull with relish. "That's better." Wiggington's eyes flashed and he raised an eyebrow provocatively  "Tell the truth, Watson, when you were standing there in the middle of that fire fight, who were you thinking of?"

                John coloured under his tan skin; a most charming high red on his cheek bones.

                "No one.”

                "Liar!" Wiggington went into a Charles Laughton impersonation.

                "I was a little busy." John complained.

                "The question is whether you were lying then, or are you lying now..."

                "Saving your life..."

                "Or are you in fact a chronic and habitual Liar!"

                Wigginton let his bottom lip hang loose.

                “Charles Laughton? Really.  You are such a cliché."

                "I'm a cliche?  You traveled half way around the world and risked life and limb to impress the man..."

                "Okay! Okay!" John held his hands up in surrender.  "You got me.  I was thinking about your mother." He smiled devilishly at Wigginton.

                "Pathetic." Wiggington shook his head. You're definitely straight, Watson, only a heterosexual male would deny his own feelings like that."

                "You're just now getting it? I've been telling you I'm straight all along." John shut down and focused on his driving.

                Wigginton tsked and went back to his flask.

                As they pulled into the hospital grounds, an orderly opened the gate to the private lot in the back.  John waved at the young man, one of his new hires, and cleared his throat before turning to a frosty Wigginton.

                "So, can I borrow your phone?"

                Wiggington dug into his shirt pocket.  “You should let me talk to her Watson.  She is going to go off like a bomb when she hears where you are.”

                “I’m not here, mate.  I’m in the Swiss Alps, shooshing down the slopes.”

                “Your funeral.”  He handed the phone to Watson and kicked open the passenger side door, climbing out he turned in a slow circle looking at the new grounds.  He whistled.  “You did all this in two weeks?”

 

 

                Mary Moffat-Watson was in a meeting when the call came through.  Normally she wouldn’t have answered a phone call from a number she didn’t recognize, but normally she knew where her husband was.  She excused herself from the RSPCA board members meeting to take the call in the hall.

                “Hello?”

                “Mary? Hi. It’s John.”  As if she didn’t know his voice.

                “John. Where are you?”

                “Oh, haha.  Germany.  Remember?  Conference.  Sorry I haven’t called before.  My phone was damaged, yep, dropped it in a puddle getting out of the cab, so I couldn’t call.”

                “You’re calling now.” She pointed out.

                “Yes. Haha. It’s not my phone.  Phillip’s.  Bloke I met here at the conference.  He is letting me borrow it.  Actually, he, Phillip, is having me go ski with him, for a week, up in the Alps. “

                “How cozy.  The two of you in the mountains.”

                “Well, there will be more people there, not just me and him, of course.  Anyway, it makes the hospital look good, if I show up for something like this.”

                “Oh.  Does it?” Mary paced, her heels sharply clacking on the tile floor.

                “Yes.  Of course.  Otherwise I would come straight home.”

                “Of course you would.  Straight away.  My good man John.”  She was smiling, teeth together, and nodded at a secretary that hurried past with a tray of tea and bisquits for the meeting.

                “Erm…” John heard something in her tone that worried him, but he didn’t have the steel nerves to lie to her and question her at the same time. “Well, I should go.  Don’t want to run up Phillip’s phone bill.”

                “Right.”

                “And… uh… I’ll be out of mobile range for a few days.  Remote location and mountains and all.”

                “Yes.”  She stopped pacing and kicked the toe of her shoe against the ceramic pot containing a rubber tree.

                “So, I’ll see you in a bit, then.  Um, give my love to Roger.”

                “Oh. I will.  And Harry sends you her love as well, John.  She wants you to call when you get a chance.  Okay?”

                John couldn’t answer, his mind froze.

                “Oh, and a terrible thing has happened, John, poor Peachy. His wife was never even pregnant.  Now that’s a real complication. Don’t you think?”

                “Mary… I…”

                “Goodbye John.” She rang off.

6000 miles away, a very small Army doctor leaned his forehead against the cool steel of a Quonset hut wall and wondered if he had just lost his home.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thinking ahead to season 3 and the obvious *shudders* wedding, caused me to imagine a Sherlock built to Moffat's specification. That would mean, No Gay Subtext. No Gay Anything. With John married off to Mary, who will "work with" Sherlock now? The logical answer is the forensics specialist who has always been mad for him and willing to do anything he asks. And she has better lab equipment than he does. Don't worry. Moffat's Sherlock is Asexual. Married only to his work. You wont have to sit through any awkward Molly/Sherlock.
> 
> How would John handle being replaced? What would that do to the dynamics of his marriage? When the longed for miracle finally happens, and Sherlock comes back, why is it that John finds he isn't happy? Instead of joy, there is only disappointment and niggling resentment as John watches Sherlock and Molly run the streets while he tends to his marriage and family.
> 
> I'm taking this bit by bit and letting it lead me where it will. It is more an exercise than story.

Molly climbed the steps with Anna close behind, packing in groceries.

                "Mom, who was that lady. She looked familiar." Anna asked in her faint voice that she used when she was curious but afraid the answer may be unpleasant.

                "You remember Mrs. Watson.  John's wife. I think you met her when Dad went in with his broken leg."

                As Molly and Anna had rounded the corner on their walk back from Tesco, they had caught a glimpse of Mary Watson climbing into a cab.

"Oh!"  Anna's voice returned to its normal strident east European tone.  "Do you think something’s wrong?" Her steps quickened.  As Molly opened the door to the flat Anna rushed past to check on her dad.

                Sherlock was folding laundry. They had installed a washer and dryer in 221C and Sherlock found that folding clothes allowed him time to order his thoughts.

                "Dad." Anna hugged him. The social worker said these displays of affection, even coming as late in her development as they did, were healthy for Anna. It showed she was learning to trust contact again. Sherlock remained still, letting her determine the length of time their bodies would touch. After three seconds, she stepped back.

                "What did Mrs. Watson want?" she asked.

                Sherlock always spoke frankly to Anna.  After all the terrible truths Anna had dealt with in her childhood, nothing Molly or Sherlock said could have any damaging effect.

                "She was looking for her husband." he said and handed her a stack of folded clothes.

                "Is Mr. Watson missing?"  She tucked the clothes under her arm and remained standing, demanding answers.

                "No. I know where he is. She just didn't know."

                "You told her, right?"

                "Of course. "

                Molly came out of the kitchen, having tucked the cold goods in the refrigerator.

                "Where is he?" Molly asked.

                "Afghanistan."

                "What?"

                "Kandahar, don't worry, a very safe part of Afghanistan Mycroft tells me."

                "What's he doing there?" Molly asked.

                "Fighting a war?" Anna interjected.

                "No. Being a doctor, in a hospital." he informed Anna, then turned to Molly.  "He joined Doctors Without Borders."

                "Oh. And he didn't tell Mary?" Molly asked as she walked back into the kitchen to start dinner.

                "No. He took off before Christmas. Told her he would be at a conference in Germany."

                Molly came directly back out of the kitchen.  "That is wrong."

                "Hmmm, I suppose.  I think he must have had his reasons."  Sherlock put on a nonchalant air.

                "No. Sherlock.  That is not normal behaviour. You need to go get him."

                "Molly.  Be serious.  The man wants nothing to do with me.  He will laugh in my face if I show up."

                "It's exactly what he wants. That's why you know where he is and Mary doesn't."

                "Mary knows now. She can...l

                "No.  He texted you on New Years.  He wanted you to know.  I told you, he wanted to be working crime scenes.  Now you've forced him to go find crime scenes half way around the world."

                "Hysterics, Molly.  Please."

                She threw a dishtowel at him.

                "Fuck you, Sherlock Holmes.  Fine.  Leave him there."

                "He's a grown man, Molly.  He will come back when he's ready."

                "Sherlock. Why would he leave and not tell anyone.  Why lie?  Maybe he doesn't want to come back."

                "That's his choice!" Sherlock's voice was creeping higher.

                "He could be going through something.  All alone.  And if something HAPPENS out there to him...and you didn't try and stop it, well, then, I don't want to see what that does to you."

                "Me?"

                "You."

                Sherlock flinched then smiled as Anna rested her hand on his arm.

                "Dad, you should go."

                Sherlock raised and dropped his hands.

                "All right.  I'll leave tomorrow.   Is that soon enough?"  he began texting Mycroft.  Anna hugged him and Molly smiled and went back to making dinner.

                Outside the easterly wind sputtered and stopped.  With a sigh the southerly wind took it’s place.

 

 

                Kayla stood before the hospital. She wore her grey hijab and a pink backpack. The backpack had been a present from Wigginton, controversial because of its color and the implication that a girl child might have need to undertake activities outside her house.  A car horn made her jump.  She looked back.  Her uncle waved at her to go on.  His face was set, determined.  Returning to the car was not an option.  She was frightened, and her eyes welled with tears again.

                The car roared away.  She was alone, on a street before a strange big building with a fence like a prison.  Terrified she turned to run after the car and instead planted her face in the thigh of a tall European.

                "Hello?" He spoke like Uncle Phillip and was tall like him, with grey eyes, but his hair was dark. His manner reserved, like a man from the mosque.  Uncle Phillip would bend down so she didn't have to tire her neck by looking straight up, and Uncle Phillip smiled a lot.  This man never smiled, she would guess.

                "Are you going to the hospital?" he asked.

                Kayla did not understand anything he said.  Uncle Phillip knew how to talk. This man, it was "blala blala blala."

                Kayla shrugged out of her backpack and opened the side pocket.  She pulled out an envelope and handed it to the tall European.  Maybe he knew Uncle Phillip.

                "Let's see." The man turned the envelope over in his hands.  Reading the name on the front, the man nodded.  "I know this name. He works here."

                Kayla watched the man's face intently.  He recognized something.  He spoke his strange tongue and pointed at the building in front of them.  He handed the envelope back to her.  She clasped it tightly in her hand.

                The tall man seemed to make himself even taller, and walked to the building.  Kayla followed.  As they approached the large double doors by the ambulance stand, a guard came out.  He had a rifle, but it was slung over his shoulder.  Kayla knew that meant she was not in immediate danger.

                "What do you want?" Kayla was happy he spoke her language.  Now it was the tall European’s turn to cock his head and not understand.  Kayla walked forward, her envelope outstretched.

                "I want to see Uncle Phillip."

                "Wigginton" The European added.

                The guard smiled, amused. "Doctor Wigginton, you mean."

                She stood stiffly with her arms crossed.

                "Come on. I will show you to him."

                The European followed them, as they walked inside.

                When the guard turned and spoke to the man, Kayla took his hand and spoke up:  "He is my other Uncle."

                The man with the silver eyes smiled at her and patted her shoulder, then nodded at the guard.

                Once inside, Kayla blinked rapidly.  Everything was so bright and white.  She felt like she was inside a car headlight.  There was a desk, and a local woman sitting behind it, talking to a man who had a bad cut on his arm.  A man in a white coat came up to the desk and took the bleeding man with him, through a door that led to another larger white room.  Kayla was so fascinated that she forgot she was bereft.

                She looked up to the tall dark haired European to see what he thought. He was chewing on his lip and playing with a black phone; tapping it with long fingers.

                Boring.

                Kayla hopped up and walked to the desk. The lady smiled at her:

                "Can I help you?"

                Kayla showed off her gap-toothed smile.             "My Uncle Phillip works here."

                "Here? That's nice. Do you know his last name?"

                "Phillip" she said.

                "Wigginton" the brooding European added from across the room.

                Kayla wondered if that was the only word he knew.

 

                Sherlock watched the child with amusement.   It suited him to wait and see this Wiggington. Mycroft had found his name and address but his frequent trips abroad left gaps in his personal history. His was the phone John called from.  There was something about this fact that made Sherlock absolutely livid, but only if he gave it any consideration.  Which he tried very much not to.

                After texting Molly that he was safe and at the hospital he slid his phone into his pocket.

                What was taking so long?

                Sherlock stood, he moved to straighten his suit flaps, but his fingers found only air.  Annoyed, he remembered he was in his "field" clothes, a bomber jacket and khaki pants.  Only slightly flustered he stepped forward to the desk to ask for John, when the door swung open and a tall thin blond man with sky blue eyes swept into the waiting room.

                "Kayla? What's happened?" He then proceeded to speak rapid fire in a language Sherlock guessed to be Pashtun, if only because of the times he had heard John shout it in nightmares.

                The little girl handed the man the envelope, she began to cry.  Wigginton, for that  Must be who he was, folded his gangly height down to her level and kissed her cheek and hugged her and petted her until she calmed down.

                Sherlock was standing, still, not sure how to proceed.  This man was the opposite of him. Blond and tan where Sherlock was dark and pale. He was open emotionally in a way that Sherlock could not even fathom.

                John must love this man. This "anti-Sherlock".   Sherlock's frozen visage thawed enough to sneer.   ‘I'm not gay’.  How many times had John told him that.  And yet, here,  he had run away, half way round the world to be with this...

                "Obvious." Sherlock spoke darkly to himself.  "Mystery solved."  he turned quickly and walked out the door. The baking mid-day sun was forcing even locals off the street, but Sherlock felt frozen, through and through.

"I'm not gay" he mimicked John’s voice, putting extra winge in it. "Not for me, anyway."  Obviously, of course, why would he be?  Who could love a dark, morose, vicious, bastard like himself?  John  had only been saving Sherlock’s feelings all along.  Pushing Sherlock away with  "I'm not gay."

                The hospital doors opened behind him, he didn't turn.

                "Hey! Hey!"

                Ah, the melodic voice of Phillip Wiggington.  Sherlock looked back over his shoulder.

                "Thanks for bringing her!" The tall man raised his arm to wave, his one-size-fits-all lab coat sleeve choking off his movement.

                Sherlock nodded.

                “God, what an idiot!” Sherlock cursed himself.  This is what happens when you allow women to advise you.  Well thank god he had seen the signs in time.  It would have been...

                Sherlock was seized around the middle.  Squeezed.  He couldn't breathe.

                This!

                This is what he had warned Molly about.  He wasn't built for this.  Emotion was going to kill him right here in the street.

                "Oh god..."  Where did you run?  He spun around, checking all the cardinal points. Nowhere.

Nowhere on the planet would shield him from this…

                 "Betrayal!". He spat the word out. Not just once, but twice now.

                "Oh god..."

                How could he look at Molly again? She would see it all.  Anna would know.  Mrs. Hudson.  'Poor, poor Sherlock.'

                Weekness.  Whirling thoughts.  Sniveling. 

                “Mycroft!”

                Horrid! Horrid!  What was left of him?  Nothing.

                "Oh god..."

                Wasn't there something that would make this stop?

 

                "Sherlock!"

                John's voice in his ears.  But his voice was often in his ears.

                The sound of boots, running, fast.

                "Sherlock! Sherlock! "  A gasping voice.  Sherlock turned around.

                Funny little man.

                The words, how often had he thought them?  Since he first laid eyes on him.

                Funny little man.

                Ridiculously small.  Preternaturally brave.

                A man in his 50's- running.  Years since he had run, obviously, he was winded and the heaviness of his boots hindered him. He was growing a beard, sandy, not grey like his hair.  He was tan.  He was scared.

                Of what?

                That Sherlock would leave?

                Sherlock's traitorous heart soared in his chest.  He would never be over this funny little man.

                "Wait.." John was gasping. Dark circles of sweat stained his shirt under his arms and around his neck.

                'It must be hot.' Sherlock thought, and he allowed his skin to feel the atmosphere.  It made him tremble.

                John came to a stumbling halt before him.  Sherlock noticed crow’s feet, and serious secondary lines bracketing his mouth.  Not a man who laughed, or even smiled much.  How had this happened? John loved a laugh.

                John made a slight whooping sound as he struggled to catch his breath.

                "John.  What happened to your face?"  Sherlock's finger was tracing the scar before he realized. "You were shot!"

                "Oh!" John lifted his hand to his face, catching Sherlock's and not letting go. "You should see the other guys."  John grinned, foolish.  It made him look like a boy of 12.

                "Dead and buried, I imagine." Sherlock's voice was husky, but he was thankful it worked at all.

                John laughed and shrugged.  "Or whatever the Taliban do with their bodies." John nodded, vainly attempting to regain some composure.  "What are you doing here?"

                "That is the same question I was going to ask you."  Sherlock tugged to get his hand back, but if John noticed he didn't let on. He wrapped his fingers tighter around Sherlock's wrist.

                "Oh, joined Doctors Without Borders."

                "And they swear you to secrecy, do they?”

                John waved his free hand,  "Its complicated."

                "Oh, right, Wigginton." Somehow Sherlock's mouth formed the words, and he managed to say them only a little venom.

                "What?  Wiggington? "  John laughed.  "Hah! He wishes!  No, no, he has somebody.  He's just the doctor in charge."

                Sherlock thought his knees would buckle.

                "My god it’s good to see you.  Where were you going?” John asked suspiciously.   “Were you leaving?"  John's eyes locked on his face looking for answers.

                It was Sherlock's turn to stammer.  "It’s complicated, also."

                "Come inside. There's tea.  And I have to tell you something."  Without waiting for an answer John turned, his hand still holding on, towing Sherlock in his wake.

                "Who is that little girl?" Sherlock asked.

 

 


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thinking ahead to season 3 and the obvious *shudders* wedding, caused me to imagine a Sherlock built to Moffat's specification. That would mean, No Gay Subtext. No Gay Anything. With John married off to Mary, who will "work with" Sherlock now? The logical answer is the forensics specialist who has always been mad for him and willing to do anything he asks. And she has better lab equipment than he does. Don't worry. Moffat's Sherlock is Asexual. Married only to his work. You wont have to sit through any awkward Molly/Sherlock.
> 
> How would John handle being replaced? What would that do to the dynamics of his marriage? When the longed for miracle finally happens, and Sherlock comes back, why is it that John finds he isn't happy? Instead of joy, there is only disappointment and niggling resentment as John watches Sherlock and Molly run the streets while he tends to his marriage and family.
> 
> I'm taking this bit by bit and letting it lead me where it will. It is more an exercise than story.

  Once back inside the hospital, John dragged Sherlock through an open bay hospital ward with 25 beds, mostly filled, and through a side door into a tiny office.

                A tiny office for two, it turned out.  The shoebox sized room had two desks and two chairs  and not enough  extra room to sneeze.   Wiggington and the little girl, Kayla, were already there.  Wiggington was on the phone, switching back and forth between Pashtun and English, depending on what he wanted the little girl to hear.

                "She moved back home,” Wiggington was explaining in English, “But they don’t have schools for girls…."  Wigginton stopped to listen to the voice on the other end of the line.

                "Javid?”.  John put a fond hand on Wigginton’s shoulder as he squeezed through to his desk.

Wiggington nodded.

                "Tell him not to worry. We can get her to England."  John nodded at Sherlock as a way of explanation.  “Sherlock has friends in high places.”

                Wiggington’s eyes lit on Sherlock and he knocked his chair over standing up.

                " Javid, I’ll call you back."  Wigginton reached Sherlock in two steps.  He wrapped his arms around Sherlock hugging so tight that Sherlock couldn’t move.   After a two second hug Wigg leaned back and without letting go turned to John. "Didn't I say so? I said he'd come and here he is."

                John shook his head .

                "No Wigg. You said he would show up to my funeral."

                "Well it nearly was." Wiggington turned back.  He was slightly taller than Sherlock and looked down at him from under long blond lashes.  "Your boyfriend saved my life.”

                “Boy friend?”  Sherlock extricated himself stiffly from Wigginton’s grip.

                “Look where you are…” Wigginton spread his arms as if that explained everything. “Oh, let me show you…look”

                Wigginton pealed back the corner of his shirt. Sherlock obliged, looking down his shirt to the dressing over his right breast.

                "You can't see the hole, it’s still covered, but I was down and out.  Couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe.  Watson stood there, cool as you please, and  with his wee pistol  shot three Taliban with AK's.  I've never seen anything like it."

                "They were lousy shots."  John's ears were pinking in a most charming way, Sherlock noticed.

                "You should be proud!" Wiggington cocked his head and waited for Sherlock's reaction.

                Sherlock was not sure what was happening, but it seemed as though for this brief point in time, life was exactly as he had always dreamed it should be.  He knew John loved his voice when he dropped it into a steel drum, and so when he answered, he let his voice rumble.

                "I'm always very proud of John."

                Wigginton’s mouth opened and his tongue darted out to wet his bottom lip. John laughed at the effect Sherlock could produce on people when he wanted to.

                "Go on. Go get Kayla some lunch." John shoved Wiggington out the door and then smiled at Kayla as she followed her stepfather out.

                Finally alone John locked the door then turned around and leaned against Wigginton’s desk watching Sherlock try to decide what to do with his hands.  He settled for “Parade Rest”

                "Sorry about that. Apparently we were once a big deal to London's gay community. “

                “Us? We were…?”  Sherlock asked, incredulous.

                “Yeah” John nodded and smiled.  “Bigger than Prince Harry.”

                “How much of that was true?" Sherlock asked, pointing to the door that Wigginton went through.

                "Pretty much all of it."  John was finding it hard to not flinch under Sherlock’s gaze.

                "You came to the ends of the Earth for me?"

                John nervously licked his own bottom lip.

                "Yes. Well… I came here because of you."

                "Because of me?  That is rather a different thing." 

                "Yes… No... It’s the same thing."

                “What do you mean, John?"

                For a man with incredible skills of detection, he was not piecing this together well.  Fearful he might put a foot wrong, Sherlock waited.

                John stood straight, and looked him in the eyes.

                "When we met, I was lost. You found me. I know, you didn't mean to. You're just very good at finding lost things. You gave me back myself.  I loved you for it, and I would do anything for you.   Then, when you threw yourself…"

                "Don't say the next part, John. I had to do it."  Sherlock chopped the air in front of him.

                "Yeah, I know. "

                "And when I came back..."

                "You abandoned me..." John filled in.

                "...you betrayed me.”  Sherlock spoke over the top of John.  “I was building us a world we could live in, and you ..." Sherlock stopped himself, clasping a hand over his mouth; terrified he had said the wrong thing. He sat on the corner of Wigginton’s desk. "Sorry. Go on..."

                "Betrayed. That's what you felt?"

                Sherlock shrugged. "Emotionally. Not logically.  I couldn't help but feel you chose a normal respectable life over me."

                "You're right. I did.  I was devastated and I tried to protect myself “

                “I never let you come to crime scenes.  Molly said I should. She never shut up about it, but I couldn't be close to you, not without begging you to come back.  I would have been pitiful.  You would have loathed me."

                John leaned against the desk, his elbow bumping against Sherlock's arm.

                "I lived for Mary, for Moffat and for my son, but I couldn't get over...'Us'. " John took Sherlock's hand.  "I came all the way out here to die, so you would notice me. Juvenile, I know.  I wanted you to cry at my funeral.  I thought at least then I would know you cared."

                Sherlock smiled. "I would have flung myself on your casket."

                "It's not too late, you still can, someday. I would like that."

                Sherlock chuckled.  John took Sherlock's hand and pressed it to his lips. The movement unlocked him, and John found the courage to speak.

                "I don't know anything Sherlock except that I want to be with you.  I've tried to live without you and I'm shit at it."

                Sherlock's eyes grew cloudy. "May I kiss you?"

                "Yes."

                Sherlock leaned over and kissed John on the cheek, just above his new scar. Then he murmured in John's ear. "It's only ever been you."

                John  looked up into Sherlock's amazing eyes, then  kissed Sherlock on the sardonically curved lips that had distracted him for years. His heart beat thudded heavy and strong in his ears.  He was aware of everything in that moment, the heat, the dust dancing in the light from the window, the sound of far off talk in the ward, the tick of his wrist watch.

               So much time lost.  Years.

                "Not one more day."

               The words slipped out.  Not one more day denying, John meant, not one more day lost, not one more day spent in half measures.  Sherlock seemed to understand. He caught John's hand in his and placed it over his heart.

"No. Not one more day."

 


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thinking ahead to season 3 and the obvious *shudders* wedding, caused me to imagine a Sherlock built to Moffat's specification. That would mean, No Gay Subtext. No Gay Anything. With John married off to Mary, who will "work with" Sherlock now? The logical answer is the forensics specialist who has always been mad for him and willing to do anything he asks. And she has better lab equipment than he does. Don't worry. Moffat's Sherlock is Asexual. Married only to his work. You wont have to sit through any awkward Molly/Sherlock.
> 
> How would John handle being replaced? What would that do to the dynamics of his marriage? When the longed for miracle finally happens, and Sherlock comes back, why is it that John finds he isn't happy? Instead of joy, there is only disappointment and niggling resentment as John watches Sherlock and Molly run the streets while he tends to his marriage and family.
> 
> I'm taking this bit by bit and letting it lead me where it will. It is more an exercise than story.

  Arraigning for Kayla to make the journey  safely out of the country and into her father's arms at Wigginton’s residence was the work of an afternoon.  When you are related to someone with deep ties to M16, things can happen quickly.

                Wigginton convinced Javid that it was in his best interest to work as a consultant with Mycroft, adding his family’s clout to any anti-Taliban endeavors constructed by the British government.  In exchange he was given citizenship for himself and his daughter.

                John found it endlessly amusing to remind Wigginton how distracting a kid could be to someone's sex life.  For Kayla's part, she found Sherlock to be such a curiosity, that nearly anytime he looked up, she would be there, staring at him.  She taught Sherlock a few words in Pashtun and he divined the few English words she would require immediately and practiced with her until she could say, "Obviously." with as much derision as he did.

                A Taliban strike in a village 30 miles away, filled the hospital to capacity and more. They wrangled some army cots from the base and made pallets on the floor.  John was up for 60 hours straight, and for once it was Sherlock's turn to fuss and worry and fetch cups of tea and sandwiches.  John would have found it amusing if he hadn't been dead on his feet.

                When Mycroft sent the jet for Kayla, John and Wigginton agreed that Sherlock should fly back with her, since the replacement doctors weren't expected for another week.  Sherlock adamantly refused.

                "I just got you back. I'm not going to lose you already."

                "I'll be fine. It makes far more sense for Wigg to stay. He's a trained doctor."

                "You are wasting your breath John."  And that was that.

                Nights were something new and strange to John. The two slept on separate cots, two feet apart. The picture of decorum, in case the staff came in to wake John for an emergency.  Once they were settled John would stretch his arm across the distance, and find Sherlock’s hand waiting for him.  Their fingers would weave together and John would tell Sherlock something that Sherlock didn't know about himself while Sherlock's thumb would softly stroke the back of John's hand.

                "You're a right handsome devil at all times, but when you're on a case, you become like a fox, all nose and eyes and forehead. You know, like when you look into a convex mirror."

                "Sounds monstrous." Sherlock's voice rumbled.

                "But it's not. Not at all." John protested. "It’s wonderful.  I always knew you were on the trail when you got that look. It always took my breath away. You went from gorgeous to profound."

                "Profound?" Sherlock laughed softly, "not 'majestic'?"

                 At some point they would fall asleep that way.  John felt them trust each other more with each passing day. He noticed that Sherlock stood closer to him, laughed some, smiled more.  Often, when a nurse left the area and they found themselves with a rare, unobserved moment; Sherlock’s hand would steal into his and like as not be followed by a kiss on the cheek.

                One afternoon, in the storage locker, while reloading trays with pills for the evening rounds, Sherlock took John's hand.   Anticipating Sherlock's next move, John turned his head and caught the kiss aimed for his cheek with his lips.  Sherlock grunted in surprise but did not pull away, instead he wrapped his arm around John's waste, pinning John's arm behind his back at the same instant and stepped into John using the full advantage of his height and reach to move past all John's heterosexual male defenses.

                John felt every hair stand up on his neck, his testicles tightened up against his body, but his cock twitched violently with interest in the proceedings. It was the first time John truly understood what a physical relationship with Sherlock might be like.  John was still "not gay" but he was in love with this dark prince all the same.

                "Fuck." John spoke into Sherlock's mouth.  He could trace the wicked curve of Sherlock's lips with his own as the Detective smiled, pleased with himself.

                 Sherlock released him as a hand turned the lever on the door.  He busied himself with stacking towels as he watched John out of the corner of his eye.  The brave stout army doctor tried desperately to put himself back together as a nurse approached with a question.  The feeling this gave Sherlock, that finally, after so many many years, he could open the door to the safe room in his mind and find John there again, was too much to process on the spot.

                Sherlock volunteered for laundry duty, so he could spend two hours reliving the moment in his mind.  He was hardly a virgin, but nearly every sexual encounter he had in his past was related to solving a crime.  Sometimes it was to gain a confidence, or find a way in to a circle of people, or just part of a cover.  He had probably had more partners in a stranger and greater variety of settings and scenarios than John.  But nothing that felt as dangerous as this. With John he felt as if he had a knife at his throat, one wrong move and he would be bleeding out on the floor.

                "I'm not gay, but I'm in love with you." John had said.  What did that mean?  S Sherlock had been too much of a coward to ask.  What if it meant nothing?  Sherlock rubbed his fingers over his lips.

                "Fuck." John had said.   That had to mean something.

                At the end of John's 6th week "in country" as they used to say, the call came from the R.A.F. that a new crew of doctors had arrived.

                "Want to come?" John asked Sherlock, tossing him a kevlar vest and a 9mm handgun.

                "Absolutely.  I've never seen you drive before."

                Inside the cab of the truck John pointed out the jamming device.

                "If I say 'hit it', press that button."

                Sherlock's face was serious, but the cornier of his lip kept twitching.  John smiled.

                "What?" Sherlock looked at him.

                "Like old times." John said.

                The trip to the base was uneventful, except for a sudden Taliban road block, but John saw the cars ahead slowing and ducked down an alley.  Sherlock looked at him curiously, as the truck raced and bucked down the rutted road, but didn't say anything.  John looked back and shrugged.  Sherlock felt a shock of pleasure.  Death was all around them and John was sitting back in his seat with one hand on the wheel, as relaxed as a cat sunning itself.

                 Dangerous Little Man.

                "What's that?" John asked, shouting a bit over the road noise.

                Sherlock frowned. He had to stop saying things out loud.

                "Nothing." he answered.

                John grinned.  "I wish you could see yourself Sherlock. You look like an Arab Prince."

                "Is that good?" Sherlock checked his reflection in the side view mirror.  The man looking back had wild black curls grown out over his ears and shining silver eyes set in tanned face.

                "Fuck yeah, it's good." John winked at him.  "If we weren't driving, you'd be in trouble now."

                “Trouble’s good.”  Sherlock smiled.

                John laughed and focused on the road.

               

                Three days later, John and Sherlock were airborne.  Back to Britain.  Flying on one of the private jets Mycroft furnished was much faster than the cargo planes John and Wigginton had flown out on. John wasn't sure how he felt about that.   The last few weeks had been almost a fantasy.  He wasn’t ready for it to end.

                Napping between Dubai and Morocco, John dreamt he was in his bed at Moffat Towers.  A hand on his shoulder woke him.

                "You were having a nightmare." Sherlock informed him.

                John touched the scar on his face.  It reassured him.

                Sherlock leaned over and kissed John's cheek.

                "God, it was so real." John shuddered.

                "What was it?"

                "Waking up at Moffat Towers."

                Sherlock nodded and held his hand, casually, letting it rest in his lap.

                "Will you stay with me."   Sherlock didn't look at John while he asked, but he rubbed his palm on the back of John's hand.

                "Is there room?"

                "We rented 221C. Our laundry room is down there. And I put a bed in, for when I'm on a case and need a place to grab a nap in the middle of the day. There is a shower and kitchen." Sherlock looked over to see how the idea was going over.  John was watching him speak, a thoughtful expression on his face.

                "We could paint..." Sherlock suggested hopefully.

                "I love it already. Yes. Thank you."

                "Good.  Good." Sherlock sat back and crossed his leg causing John’s hand to rest on his soft cock. Sherlock watched him close, to see if his hand jerked away.  It stayed.  More… John's fingers spread open and he ever so casually pressed Sherlock's cock against his thigh.

                "Will you come down?  Spend a night some time?" John wondered.

                Sherlock nodded vigorously. "Any time you like."

                "Good." John said.

                "Will you solve a case with me?"

                "When ever and where ever you like." John said.

                "Fine. That's fine then."

                Sherlock sat back in his seat, John's hand in his lap, and spread his arms like wings to gracefully land his right arm across John's shoulder's.  John leant his head back on Sherlock's forearm without making a "thing" out of it.

                This was what had stolen Sherlock's heart so many years ago.

                This way John had of accepting him, in all his ways good and bad, of taking what Sherlock could give and not demanding more; this brought Sherlock the warmest comfort and confidence in all endeavors.   Including this latest - Sherlock as lover.

                Now, to give something back.

                "Shall I tell you about a case I'm working on? Well, we're working on, if you like."

                John turned from looking out the window. "Yes. I'd like that."

                 "It’s a cold case, maybe you remember the Cardiff man who poisoned his sister for her inheritance?  Now his daughter is trying to clear her father's tarnished image.  It seems he was painted with the blackest strokes by the papers..."

                "We know all about that, don't we." John growled and settled in to listen.

 


End file.
